


Hail Howard

by blue_chocolate



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Actors, Coming Out, Fluff, M/M, Paranormal, Wall Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-16
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-04-15 02:10:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4589085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue_chocolate/pseuds/blue_chocolate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been twenty-five years since Britain's most beloved television show, <em>Hail Howard,</em> was cancelled, when a third season is announced in the making. For Harry, a young actor on his way to stardom, this is great news. For Louis, a long-time fan of the show, it is a disaster. It all gets more complicated when paranormal events start occurring in the studios.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [onewasturning](https://archiveofourown.org/users/onewasturning/gifts).



> Inspired by the _Twin Peaks _phenomena. Dedicated to onewasturning because they're my idol and though I haven't read their works in months they continue to inspire me. This is my way of saying thank you.__
> 
>  
> 
> __  
> _I do not own One Direction. This story is completely fictional._  
> 

**_Hail Howard_ ** **scheduled for a third season.**

_On November 29 th, co-creator Edmund Rich confirmed the rumours via _Twitter _._

 _Since the announcement was made, the casting has been very successful, led by Rich and filled with newbies as well as experienced actors. Among the veterans we have the critically acclaimed (and nowadays the rumoured nominee of the_ 62ndBritish Academy Television Awards _) Liam Payne, who has been a member of the Sunny Crew since he was introduced as Cecily’s (Beatrice Levi) and Bernard’s (Jacob Marks) son in the first season. I think we all can agree that he has lost a lot of baby fat since then!_

_Joining him are large parts of the original cast—something Rich has done everything in his power to secure, according to the writer himself. Unfortunately, it has also been confirmed that the show’s backbone, Sterling Faulkner, will no longer be a part of the production._

_“It’s sad to continue without him,” Payne said to the Mirror._

_Though it will no longer be a Sterling/Rich production, Rich has said that he is set on preserving “as much of Sunny Hills and its characters as possible” and that he is willing to take on the challenges left behind by the last season._

_The third season promises a continuation of the 90s mystery drama and its loose threads that will be enjoyable for long-term fans as well as a new crowd—though we advise all newcomers to catch up on the weirdness of the show before it’s due._

_The show is set to start filming in April and will air in fifteen episodes from June through September._

✘

 

Louis wasn’t sure who moved first. Pizza crusts clung to his fingertips, forming lumps where he had rubbed them together for the past hour. The garlic saturated his mouth with a bitter tang and his hand treaded for a glass of water. Ahead of him, end credits rolled, and behind them he saw himself.

This was not how it was supposed to go.

“We couldn’t expect more than what they have given us. That’s the sad truth.”

“They’re better than this,” he said, hoisting up his dead leg to his chest. “Why wasn’t it even remotely like the previous seasons? They _promised_ to keep at least something! Why not even the atmosphere? Aren’t they decent enough to…”

The next show rolled on after a brief commercial break. His mum zapped it off.

“I know, sweetie,” she said. “Let’s just forget it.”

The blank screen taunted him, tossed all his childhood dreams into a bin and set it ablaze. He wanted to curse but forced it down, gritted his teeth instead. He wasn’t going to face this today. It had been months of working their household up—even his sisters—and months of broken sleep to check interviews, inhale gossip and trivia from sneak-peeks behind the scenes.

“No, I’m not gonna forget it,” he said and stood up. His dead leg protested. “Next Thursday I’m coming back over and we’ll sit and watch again.”

“Do you have that much faith in them?” his mum asked.

Louis shook his head.

“I just have that much persistence.”

One week from that they resumed their positions, squaring the couch from different angles and laid out an impressive dinner. Louis hadn’t seen that much food since he had moved out, before his sisters went to stay with their dad. The pending show lured at the back of his worries, so he kept raking his eyes over the melon and sliced ham, the dam of salad he had helped arrange and the golden cheese. He stared until everything quietened and the telly displayed a scenery, where unfamiliar people busying themselves with garden work popped up right and left for introduction.

The buildings had been redecorated, the asphalt smoothened and streets name swapped. The camera panned to its first scene, through the doors of the ancient café _Mary’s Corner_. Louis’ heart rejoiced—his mum inhaled deeply. The café’s pink roses brought a sweet sensation into the living room, one that left a hopeful imprint on Louis’ mind.

Time froze until the actors pranced in and Louis’ dreams shattered. He clenched his fist. They disrupted the atmosphere. They spoke without care for the setting, without care for the world brought to life over twenty-five years ago.

Louis had promised he would keep his mouth sealed through the episode. The task grew more difficult with each frayed line the telly droned.  He could not fathom how the casting could have been “very successful” when these “actors” where incompatible with everything around them. When the uncanny _Sunny Hills_ was announced for comeback, it had preached deeper backstory and _actors_ who immersed themselves in their parts. Instead, the Tomlinsons sat through a second episode of cheap chick-flick action and disjointed dialogue.

By the time end credits were due, Louis’ head was so far into his hands he was starting to see light again.

“This wasn’t _as_ bad,” his mum said as she massaged Louis’ shoulder.

He blocked out the familiar outro music. The couch took him in its ragged fabric and he slouched forward to mouth at his knee.

“I’m sorry I made you watch it at all,” he said. “I’ll just… I’ll get going, now, then.”

His mum didn’t protest. They entered the hallway where Louis kicked into his shoes.

“The ending might surprise us,” she said. His eyebrows knitted, so she un-crossed her arms. “I’m suggesting we watch it through or till they do something inexcusable, like killing off Leopold Hartland.”

Louis did adore Leo Hartland.

“I’ll recover, honestly. I’m grown up now.”

“Believe me, I know. If you aren’t doing anything next Thursday, feel free to drop by. Your old mum misses you.”

At that, Louis softened. He buried his face in her neck, in the nuanced sweetness of her perfume, hooped her in his arms.

“You’re not old,” he mumbled. “I’m old.”

Joy painted her face, but he knew it wasn’t because of them seeing the show again.

“Get something to eat before you drop by though. I will pay for it when you come home, but it will be up to you to set the mood.”

He kept her words in mind when he headed back home, scheduling Thursday night.

Come Thursday, he left his shell of a flat with twenty minutes to spare and headed for a restaurant farther down his mum’s street.

Everywhere in the media, praise for the series ricocheted like wildfire. From others in the business to TV-junkies and people he himself could hang out with—everyone spewed their blessings. During one of his four a.m. escapades he had discovered a focused centre of displeased long-term fans in their own niche of the internet. Many of them attacked the new wave of bad seeds in the show, how they, along with the stale script, contributed to attracting uncultured twelve-year-olds to the fan base. Louis could do little but raise his fist in agreement.

He had doubled the amount of complaints on the site within an hour and had been met with a myriad of agreeing voices—people who knew what was going on and did not fall for this new façade. These people were the show’s backbone now that Sterling had flown the nest. If Louis ever had the chance to meet creator Edmund Rich he would summon all rage gathered in that niche of the fan base and unleash it upon him and everyone who had contributed to the show’s inevitable demise.

During his four a.m. escapades he had also found himself shamefully hoping that they would kill off Leo Hartland, just so he wouldn’t have to follow the show anymore.

Without time reserved to bonding with his mum and without hope that the aftermath of the original cast could take some glue and scissors to the show, he would not have made his way through soaked raincoats and snogging couples cramping up his leeway that evening.

The restaurant tore him from his stormy thoughts and wrapped him in aromas of roasted beef and prickly chili. The kitchen lit up ahead, its angelic light serenading in the glasses and wines on the counter—maybe he should ask to snag a bottle—and drying his damp hair by the second. Empty tables lined his way forward. One of the staff raised a hand in greeting as he drew near and revealed his familiar face. Somewhere between the downpour behind him and the hot and heavy salvation before him, he faltered in his steps.

A sob hitched the air.

Louis’ eyes strayed to an elderly couple smack in the middle of the room, both engrossed in their omelettes, then to a hunched figure whose shoes skidded across the floor as he tried to pull himself together. Another sob jerked his shoulders.

The food sticking Louis’ nostrils diluted with the parched air as his feet carried him to the table. His inner saviour cheered. He grasped the back of the figure’s chair and took in his hands, spanned over his face. The man rested his elbows on the table, unwitting of Louis’ scrunched brows and tense stance.

“Hey, you all right?” Louis said.

“Oh, sorry,” the man said, his voice clogged and his face speckled when he slanted his head to Louis. He drowned out the clattering kitchen utensils around them.

Harry Styles. A bad seed.

Louis assembled himself.

“No, no, I just—“

“Usually I’m not this obvious,” Harry Styles said with a chuckle, thumbing his tears away.

All Louis had wanted for the past two weeks was to jam a fist through Harry Styles’ skull and interrogate him about what the show had done to make him hate it so much, because right now it had turned into a bigger wreck than the Titanic and it made the angels cry. Louis had multiple dreams about prancing into the studio and flicking each contributor to the show’s hell on the head and tear down props to scare them back to their homes, dreams about taking the megaphone and calling it a day before eight am.

The destructive desires ran off him while Harry untangled curls plastered to his jawline, shoes squeaking when he stood up.

“Hey, hey, sit down, please,” Louis said.

Harry complied.

After a heated debate in his head, Louis scooted a chair to the table. He bulked up against the window to shield them from passer-byers.

“How are you?”

Harry shrugged, still smiling.

“It starts in fifteen, the show,” he said, scratching at the table’s intricate pattern with one nail. “Zayn is… My roommate is obsessed with it, keeps showing me articles and reviews about it, wakes me up at five a.m.”

“Understandable—you’re the star of the show.”

“Am not.” Harry stopped messing with the table. “Thank you, but I’m just there. I don’t do much.”

“Honestly…” Louis balanced his chair on two legs, gauging Harry’s void expression. He touched ground in a thud. “You aren’t half as bad as many of your colleagues. Sure, it was stilted in the nineties too, but that was the fashion. Now? People are pickier.”

The red flames in Harry’s face faded. They revealed tan lines and bleak eyes, fixed on Louis.

“Are you going to the press?”

Louis shook his head.

“Hell no, it wouldn’t be worth it. The weather is shit, too.”

The roaring outside entered the restaurant when people came through the door and shook themselves dry. While Harry threw glances at the line forming, Louis’ eyes trailed down to his throat, how it bobbed at the sight of commotion. Louis wished his body could cover twice of what it did now.

“Anything out there?” he said.

Harry snapped back to their conversation.

“Just… I’m sure Zayn’s there somewhere. I kind of ran out on him. Like a kid.”

“Would it be bad if he found you?”

“No, but it _would_ mean getting dragged back to watch _Hail Howard_.” Harry snorted. “It’s embarrassing. Especially when he’s so all over it, whereas for me it’s like watching homemade videos of you as a kid. Every week, we sit down. He’s proud of me and I’m not ashamed to be a part of it, it just… It’s tough.”

“Try telling him that, if you haven’t.”

“It just makes him more persistent,” Harry said, shaking his head. “He says it’s self-therapeutic—and I get where he comes from, but it doesn’t work for shit. So now I’m here.”

Louis sighed. “Harry. You’re not a bad actor.” The words jarred through him, like he had cursed during a sermon, but Harry picked a stray lock from his forehead and looked up, eyes hollow. Louis gave himself a mental pat for nailing the issue at hand. “Do you think you would have beaten out countless others for the part if you had been a bad actor? Even I would have auditioned for that part if I’d had a bone of acting in me.”

A lax grin split Harry’s face. He fiddled with the packaged tooth-picks by the spice tray.

“Guess it’s just years of crappy self-esteem. He, uh… They scream at us a lot on-set. And everyone gets it down first-try, the lines and chemistry, but I can’t do that.”

“And by ‘everyone’, do you mean Willow Goodwright who’s been acting since she was four? Or wonder child Liam Payne? I’m not trying to stomp all over you, honestly, but they’ve had the luxury of professional pretentious coaching for years, and from reading about you I know you haven’t. That and their egos have inflated by a billion since media caught on.” Louis stopped acting paparazzi-shield and leaned towards Harry, voice lowered. “Want to hear a tip from a long-term fan?”

“Guess I’m bound to it anyway.”

“Not if you want to go back to your roommate and watch the show. By the way, I would strongly suggest re-watching, or watching, the nineties seasons. Your character is mentioned frequently at the end of the second season, so going back for inspiration and a deeper understanding would do you good, definitely. Try spending time with these characters—this _world_.Act like you’re a part of it instead of in it. Personally I’d say to play a little less on your mysterious aspect because I’m guessing it will unfold naturally as the season carries on.”

“You know more about me than I do,” Harry said, that dopey grin playing at his lips. “I mean, the fictional me. Probably the real me too.”

“What can I say, long-term fan.” Louis perked up at tinkling glasses and buzzing conversations to be met with a swelling crowd in the restaurant. He had to wrap it up before Harry squirmed through the floor. “Just don’t be afraid to trust your instincts. Not everyone will appreciate it, sure, but I also think those who do will be grateful that you took the initiative, and perhaps do the same. A lot of practise on your own can boost your confidence. Also, bug your roommate with running lines. Make him suffer.”

The last part made Harry chuckle. His eyes filled up with something brighter than their previous dejection, just as his cheeks grew fuller. Long curls bounced forward when he tossed a hood over his skull and tightened his coat.

“Do you think you could look past my pity-party?” he said, lifting the chair back when he stood. Louis mirrored him.

“It happens to the best of us. I won’t tattle to anyone.”

They headed for the exit, Louis squaring his shoulders against the customers while Harry burrowed himself, fitting into Louis’ side for a second.

“You didn’t have to sit down with me,” Harry said in the vestibule. He leaned back against the glass, eyeing Louis from underneath his fringe. “But I’m really glad you did. Thank you for bothering.”

“Thank you for letting me bother you, Harry.”

“Oh, yeah. What’s your name? I’m Harry Styles.”

“You are,” Louis affirmed, eyes crinkling. “I’m Louis.”

“Thank you, Louis. We should probably go before we get mobbed or something.”

“Right, good idea.”

He squeezed Harry’s shoulder and led the way out the door.

A tempest had replaced the drizzle and night’s wings had folded over the earth. Traffic and flickering lampposts hurled their gloom on the narrow street that disappeared in the abysmal puddles lining the pavement. Harry dove right into the pit of thundering nothingness.

“You’ve got an umbrella?”

Harry faced him, clutching the tiny hood he hunched under and shouted back, “Do you?”

Louis grinned. “All right, I get it. Good luck on your life, celebrity!”

It didn’t take much for Harry’s back to vanish in the black. When he did, Louis picked himself up and shouldered his way in home’s direction. Raindrops skidded off the tip of his nose as he rocked up the stairs to his mum’s, clattering teeth and gathering the post in her basket with wet hands. Only then did the absence of food hit him.

 

✘

 

Louis wanted to tear down his walls. They consumed what little useful surface he had of his flat, not to mention their blank stare looming at him wherever he turned. One of his older friends had gone loose with some tools in his home a few weeks back and gotten rid of most of them, but one still spanned a quarter of the flat, framing the supposed kitchen in a perfect square. Barrels of paint stood stacked by his mattress. To fill out the void, Louis had taped illustrated sketches to the wall, of how he could arrange the furniture. They were beginning to form wallpaper on their own. If he had put more effort into them he may have left them up.

Maybe it was the responsibility that daunted him. He kept tracing his fingers over the barrels’ edges, never cracking one open, creating more sketches.

He checked back on his laptop. Heat meandered up his arm when he put his hand by its fan, startling from the floor’s usual frozen surface. Numerous tabs of interviews with the _Hail Howard_ cast and production team lined the top of the screen. Everything he had postponed until after the premiere to get a fresh impression of the new characters, to later sink into the people behind those acting masks—right here in his browser.

The video started playing as Louis skidded out in the kitchen to fetch two cups of lunch. Beef-flavoured noodles and tea sloshed when he sank down on the edge of his mattress, his bum nudging the floor through the springs, and cranked up the volume. One of his speakers crackled as the result of a hidden side to his four a.m. escapades. Instead of jamming in headphones he popped some joints and settled back.

Harry’s cheeks were fuller in the light of flashing cameras, just as his eyes were deeper. They yielded meaning, excitement for what lay ahead. His voice had stayed on the same husky level through the weeks while stress made the rest of him deteriorate. Louis figured it must be stress. Here the show had plucked an unwitting kid from the streets, whereas the bloke Louis comforted in the restaurant had shouldered the role of a man too soon.

_“So Harry, you’re one of the new additions to this comeback, and a quite inexperienced one at that. How has the rest of the team welcomed you?”_

Harry’s lips, curled into his mouth, unfurled and let the viewers glimpse marble white teeth.

_“I have done several plays in and out of school, but yeah this is a whole new experience and I’ve… I’m really lucky to have been given this opportunity. Everyone’s supportive and willing to run lines with you at the most ridiculous hours. It’s been the best weeks of my life so far.”_

_“Many fans think the others are jealous because you’re snagging the spotlight. Is there any jealousy going on off screen?”_

_“Jealous—no, we’re all a big family off-stage. It’s idyllic, really, but we all care and look out for each other.”_

Louis lapped at his tea while a familiar figure crashed the interview by wrapping a bulk arm over Harry’s lank form.

 _“Yes, Harry and I swap loges when we notice something missing or misplaced because usually the other one’s got it,”_ Liam Payne said, giving Harry’s hair a quick ruffle. _“It’s great to have him on board, especially with the crowd he’s bringing in. Plus, he’s talented so I’m hoping some of it will rub off on me.”_

Louis couldn’t help but wonder if their act was a sham. Nothing ran smoothly behind the scenes from what Harry had told him, but that could have taken a turn for the worse these past weeks, not pre-premiere like this video.

 _“Wow, I didn’t expect you two to get on so well,”_ the interviewer said.

 _“The age difference can be daunting, but you just have to look past it,”_ Liam said, encouraging Harry to regain control over the conversation by patting his shoulder.

 _“He always finds things to do wherever we are, so there’s never a dead moment,”_ Harry said. _“He’s been so kind to us new to the show. Yeah, I’m happy with where we are.”_

_“And where we’re going.”_

After Liam’s words the focus shifted to the reputed actresses and actors and thus fell away from Harry. Today, Louis only did extensive research on Harry Styles.

He deposited the empty mug of noodles in the bin, in front of which his flawed sketches lay. The next video rolled.

The deeper he dug, the more his shallow hate turned to dust. Louis remembered his first job interview and the way he had lain sleepless only to arrive late the next morning in a second skin of sweat and unprepared answers. Of course he wouldn’t have excelled in his duties, had he even claimed the position, let alone if he’d had a horde of expectant experts looking on as he flailed about.

Harry had done a remarkable job at keeping himself from scandals.

One peek at the clock told him to head to his mum’s. They always got together twice a week to stay in touch, though only a few blocks separated their homes. During half of these get-togethers, they would watch _Hail Howard,_ varying with some movie now and then. It took him back to his childhood when he would skip school to watch re-runs.

A large bucket of flowers greeted him upon entering the third floor. His mum could only take a step back as the delivery man squatted into her flat to dump the forest in her hall. She tapped her fingers to her collarbone. The man smoothed down his uniform and sidled past Louis, who answered her dazzled gaze with one of his own. As the padding of feet faded, Louis sauntered through the door with a snort. His mum shut the door behind them.

“I know you have admirers,” Louis said, gesturing to the plant kingdom spilling between them, “But this?”

His mum leaned to the wall with crossed arms.

“It isn’t for me,” she said, lips pursed.

Louis’ eyebrows plummeted from their arched pose.

“It’s your flat.”

He spun the bucket gently. Leaves grazed the carpet and in the corner of his eye, his mum stopped herself from reaching out to clean it. A petite card dangled from the bouquet’s body and caught his eye with its monochromatic shades. He seized it in his fingertips.

_“Louis, I hope this isn’t too traditional or strange for you to enjoy, and that you have space for it somewhere. I can’t say how your advice has affected me yet, but from the past week I know that you’ve made a difference. Thank you for helping me – H.S. xx_

“Are you hooking up with someone without telling me?” his mum said.

Louis tore his eyes from the card and gauged her for a second.

“No, no. It’s just someone I helped,” he said.

“They’re very generous. If you don’t mind, I’m going to keep those here since they’d only suffer with you.”

Louis let the card sway back in place. “Yeah, take them.”

She tugged the bucket from the carpet and padded across the bed of pollen to the kitchen. A vague circle formed where it had stood.

It had been weeks since Louis found the bloke doubled over in angst. It would be lying to say that he had forgotten the meet, but enough time had passed for it to become a memory rather than vivid imagery. The rain slithering down his spine and the twinge in Harry’s demeanour shot to the front of his mind from where it had lingered out of touch. He couldn’t possibly hold a grudge against someone as considerate as Harry Styles.

 

✘

 

Wind rippled through marrow and clothes as the takes ticked away into double digits. Noon breached the set in spotted sunshine, but the air’s harsh tint had Harry hiding in his coat. It zipped close to his nose—which must have turned a ridiculous shade of scarlet by now—and sealed off everything from shoulders to knees. Every two seconds he glanced to the studio where it rose as a sliver of grey amidst miles of fields. The majority of his colleagues hung about in there, cracking jokes and holding improvisation contests.

If he headed in there it would mean breaking character, even if he currently withered away on the side-lines. It would mean that he could no longer immerse himself in this plastic village and its Barbies and Kens, or hear Edmund Rich holler at anything and anyone.

Harry caved by take forty and nicked a cup of coffee from one of the camera men on his way to the studio. His fingertips crunched into the soft plastic while the beverage heated his gut inch by inch. Plodding through the abrasive grass, he thumbed his phone, unlocking it when it buzzed again.

Zayn had messaged him frequently since morning; pictures of feet, of bistros and shops during a stroll downtown, of sappy photographs lining their mantelpiece. It was the perfect remedy for an eventless day at work. So far, Harry had replied with pouts and glimpses into the broad infinity that hid in storm clouds looming in the horizon. Now he sent back a picture of his cup and a grin.

Laughter enveloped him in the studio when he scrubbed mud from his shoes and shut the wilderness out behind him. His chest lightened as the whining gust fell away from his ears. Platters of fruits and various crackers stacked on a lone table in the lounge. People walked from there to the set and back, snacking but displaying some level of self-restraint once they kept their distance. Many of them had draped themselves over props in the fake salon—in which Harry had yet to see scenes being filmed—and tossed each other grapes. Scripts piled in the only available armchair, some with notes scribbled all over and some neat.

Harry fingered his own script in his pocket when he settled down with them and accepted and gave greetings. Before long, someone drummed on his scalp.

“Are they making progress out there?” Elizabeth said from where she curved over the back of his chair. Her hair tickled his neck.

“Define progress,” he said.

“Have they stopped heaving chairs and tripods at one another?”

She launched a grape at his mouth. In a split second he had jerked his head in place, caught it, and let his tongue fold it away.

“That’s disgustingly fascinating,” Liam said.

Harry swallowed, shaking his head as he did.

“Everything is peachy out there, why don’t you go see for yourself?”

“Mate,” Liam said, leaning into the centre, “Your face is fifty shades of purple. We’re not going anywhere.”

Harry’s hand shot up to his nose. Cackles erupted again.

A soft melody soared through the studio. The snack-addicts paused to listen, as did the clique around Harry. The melody rallied in an elongated lament which rung clear in the shallow space, finishing off in a creak as one of the spotlights slammed into the floor below. Metal ricocheted under shelves and between actors. A sole yelp permeated the air while the last pieces clattered into silence.

“This is the fifth time this week!” Liam reared from his seat.

Harry blinked. “Fifth?”

The man responsible for the yelping left the room in haste. They peered after him.

“Not this violently,” Elizabeth said. She hadn’t moved from the backrest.

“Yeah, fifth,” Liam said. “The other three happened when you were missing in action. Singing ladies, slashed paintings, equipment bailing, skull-crushing spotlights. I’m guessing the next one will be either a mirror breaking or props randomly combusting.”

“But what have we done to piss them off?” Harry said.

“I don’t know, _being?_ This paranormal crap is beyond me.”

“Which is why we should bring in a psychic,” Elizabeth said.

The armchair ploughed into the floor as Liam dumped himself into it sideways. Shrugging, he tipped his head back over the armrest. Harry still found his flexibility astounding.

The scene thawed and people crunched metal under their feet, tiptoeing through the splinters. The spotlight’s broken eye stared into Harry. He peered up to where cables swung with momentum, expecting sparks to pop and tumble to the floor, yet it kept its calm sway. It took force to part his lips.

“Does Rich know about this?”

“He’s probably behind it all,” Liam said. Elizabeth hushed him as he curled in on himself in a deep sigh.

Harry’s phone buzzed. Zayn beamed up at him from the screen, clutching a bottle.

“Gotta head,” he said, already diving back into his coat.

“The missis wants you back, huh?”

The phone jumped in his hand.

“Champagne and all.”

“Oh, he’s blushing.” Liam crawled up the armchair, eyes wide and glinting. “He’s blushing so hard. Go get lucky, kid.”

Before anyone else could say anything, Liam started babbling to steal the attention, giving Harry more than enough leeway to escape. He took the backdoor and screwed the heat up once in his car, loosening his hair while he zoomed away from the desolate location. The AC blasted through his curls and as he lurched down the road he weaved his fingers through them, closed his eyes for a second to reminisce.

Zayn sat beside him and squeezed his thigh, eyes resting behind shades blacker than his hair and his tattoos matted in the sun’s glare. The sea spread out beyond steep cliffs to their left and a church fought time to their right. Wine and crackers bounced in the backseat, trapped in a too big basket Harry had insisted they’d bring along. The wind kept on roaring.

Half an hour later he unlaced his shoes in their hallway when a pair of sweatpants came into view.

“It’s raining?” Zayn said. Fingers caressed Harry’s scalp and remained even as he rose to his feet, one shoe on the rack. Water pearls dampened Zayn’s palm.

“Hold up,” Harry said. He grasped Zayn’s arm and nudged his face closer. Zayn’s breath coiled up his cheek, the heartening sweetness he yearned for.

He kissed the drought from Zayn’s lips as residual aftershave pinched his nostrils. Hands rested on his waist, pulling him under, and the scrub of stubble to chin barely kept him from soaring. It eased the ache glowing in his chest.

“How was your day?” Harry said between kisses.

Zayn managed to disengage with a soft sigh, measuring Harry’s strands briefly.

“I cleaned the flat, painted some. That only took till noon, but I haven’t stalked your interviews, I promise.”

“You never sent pictures of the progress,” Harry said, jerking free from his other shoe and followed his boyfriend forward. Zayn slipped his hands under the coat, lifting it off to heap on the floor with an “it’ll dry”.

A square piece of art stood amidst the room, its canvas deep and smaller than Harry’s head. Zayn had talked about detailing his work for weeks now, about how he had to limit himself to grow. Rich nuances coalesced to form one of the gentle eyes Harry woke to in the mornings. Specks popped in the hazel iris to fade at the edge of the canvas with the rest of everything, like peering down a well from a lifeless landscape. Harry knew the white would be painted over, but he had always been fonder of these on-going projects.

“If all goes well I will make a companion piece,” Zayn said from behind him, shouldering the doorway. “You’ll have to lend me a picture. I want to get everything right.”

Harry dragged a fingertip across the whiteness of its top.

“We should knock down some walls and make a gallery,” he said. “I’d keep these eyes above the bed.”

Zayn had moved to the edge of the room, hoisting the champagne up in the light and showed the label.

“We could open this gallery with a small feast, wouldn’t you agree?”

Two elegant glasses landed on the table and he uncorked the bottle without hassle. Harry wondered what else he’d prepared.

“Has work gotten better?” Zayn said.

Harry eased his finger from the nubby paper.

“It’s… That weird stuff wasn’t a one-time thing, apparently. We had those lockers Monday afternoon that slammed and broke from their hinges, but I figured that’d be it.”

“What was the accident?”

“Make that _accidents,_ plural. Liam mentioned several of them happening while I wasn’t there. Today we were between takes in the studio and someone started singing and then one of the spotlights fell—sent pieces flying everywhere.”

“Aren’t those things heavy?”

Zayn beckoned him closer, to where their hands lingered on the other’s body. Lacing their fingers, Harry chuckled.

“One of the blokes had to leave the room. I was afraid he’d had a heart attack. No one got hit, so he was the worst case we had.”

“Is anyone going to do anything about it?”

“They talk about calling in a psychic, and I wouldn’t be opposed to the idea. I just don’t think Rich would jump at the idea. So, cheers.”

“Cheers,” Zayn said. Their glasses tinkled. Harry’s throat filled with mellow remedy and when he drank he saw the photographs on the mantelpiece. The two of them, huddled together or competing, exposed only to the isolated living room. He drank faster.

“This isn’t gonna work out,” he said.

Zayn thumbed a stray drop from his glass. He nodded, barely.

Before the silence could asphyxiate them, the telly switched on and _Hail Howard’_ s melancholy intro rang out in the flat. Instead of mulling, Harry slithered under Zayn’s open arm in the sofa, burying his nose in a woody scented tee. He would have given anything to stay in that moment.

 

✘

 

The flower jungle withered two weeks later. Some plants were high-maintenance, but for the others his mum blamed the recent heat wave. With Louis they would have met their demise within three days anyway, so he didn’t complain.

On that day he stayed for breakfast at his mum’s. He brought his laptop with, dodging work duties he was supposed to deal with to glance at interviews and scan fan pages. When he stopped replying verbally, his mum rose from the table and moved behind him to make sense of the situation. Louis was far too gone to tell her off. He gestured to the screen where _actual critics_ praised the show’s recent lift in quality.

“It’s gotten better lately,” his mum agreed.

“Want to know why?” he said, already flitting through the tabs for a search he had begun. Even if she would be pleased with just the result and not the progress, Louis had yet to know the _why._ A video appropriately titled _HaHo Cast Reveals Secret To Success_ came up. He almost missed it in his ferocious scrolling, but his mum jutted a finger forward.

It filmed the studio, with people milling in the background and equipment being rolled away. His mum didn’t ask when he flashed forward to Harry’s appearance. Of course, Liam towered by his side.

_“And what do you yourselves think of the season so far?”_

A water bottle charged through the air, which Harry caught before it splattered across Liam’s face.

 _“I think it’s great,”_ Harry said. _“It’s been a fun experience and we still have about half of it left to film. I definitely think they’ve managed to tie in the old season with what’s up ahead, for the fans who are still wondering.”_

_“Yeah, it’s coming along wonderfully—some unexpected events up ahead, to say the least—and it’s so much left to happen so we’re begging you, really. Stay with it till the end. It’s come to the point where we actors gawk at the new script.”_

Despite his wording, Liam’s glimpsed grin shat all over Louis’ soul. It had taken meeting Harry in person for Louis to reconsider his prejudices, but with Liam it would take much more.

 _“So,”_ the interviewer said, _“I don’t think it’s escaped anyone here that the award nominations are beginning to pile, and I have to ask you both: what’s the secret? Especially you, Harry—forgive me Liam—but I have two kids at home who are major fans of the show, and they absolutely adore you. I’m sure they’re wondering what’s happened since you filmed the first episode. Congratulations on your progress, by the way.”_

_“Thank you, those are kind words.”_

Louis’ eyes filled out their sockets at the posed questions. The rain, the bouncing curls, the two of them clamming together in the vestibule. This was it. This was how his advice paid off, and now he was about to get thanked in the public eye. This was how he would be remembered.

A crack splintered his heart when Harry slanted his head back and slinked an arm over Liam’s shoulders.

 _“It helps to have someone as experienced as Liam,”_ Harry said with a squeeze of his hand. _“He’s been an angel and the reason I’m here now, earlier than I should have been. Maybe I’m giving him too much of an ego-boost, but he’s like my mentor. Good guy.”_

They carried out the interview in white noise.

“The boy needed some guidance, that’s for sure,” his mum said and straightened up.

Louis’ expression had frozen in mixed repulsion and disdain. His jaw hacked down an inch further.

“It’s fascinating to see how far he’s come in just a few weeks. They must be one good team, those two. Let’s just hope they can keep their promises.”

With two fingers on the laptop’s lid, Louis pressed it closed. His gaze traced the flowery wallpaper, intricate swirls harmonising with bold nuances, both aesthetics his flat lacked. While his mum tended for the plants he tried to stomach the experience. The last he wanted was to _I told you so_ himself. Harry’s first impression flooded back, where his false confidence showed off to the girls outside _Mary’s Corner._ Louis had told himself from the start.

He treaded out in the living room and drank in the view of ancient buildings swelling outside. Knowing his mum wouldn’t see and thus not question his actions, he aimed his steps for the flower jungle. He snapped the last standing magnolia with her scissor.

“I’m going to work on the flat,” he said, before returning to package his laptop.

“Did you finish your work stuff?”

“No.” He paused to assess his scheme for the day. “I’ll deal with them tonight. If I want to start painting I’ll have to get at it before noon, and I still have to get supplies.”

She joined him in the hall. “You don’t have to convince me, Louis. Like you said, you’re an adult and should be trusted to make your own decisions.”

Hair cascaded down face, held to the side by a single bobby pin. He reminded himself to buy her more once he got his life in order. His gut churned.

“Actually, can I borrow twenty quid? It’d save a lot of time.”

She slipped it into his hand, ducking her head to meet his eyes.

“I’ll hear from you soon?” she said.

“Thursday, if not sooner. Thanks.”

Misery loomed in the horizon once he strolled down the cobble outdoors. Raincoats flew up in the open-air cafés, behind which one of the waiters scurried to bring more parasols. Their rustling alerted pedestrians like Louis of the glaring heavens. They picked up their steps, shoving past him as the parched air filled with crisp earthiness. He clutched the twenty quid, hid them with his sleeve.

The crowd congealed and the people grew taller. Despite that, the store’s roof cleft the flat buildings farther down the street. The sight untangled the perpetual knot in his chest. He mentally counted the buckets of paint back in his flat, how big of a fort he could have built if they hadn’t come with responsibilities. He would scribble invitations to his co-workers on jagged pieces of carton and ask them to bring the feast and he’d bring the entertainment. He would finally invite his mum over. Maybe his sisters, if they ever came home.

A lump of greasy hair halted his journey. Every ounce of self-restraint he’d mustered up fell away when Harry Styles raised a palm in hesitant greeting.

“Hi,” Harry said. He knotted his hands together, completely oblivious to the torrent of cattle around them and the deep creases that breached Louis’ forehead. “I’ve been meaning to find you but I figured coming to your flat would be over the top.”

Louis’ gaze rotted. He tried to convey the sharp distaste to the hooded face, tried to ignore the shoulders that pivoted into him while Harry’s cloaked form stood tall. Harry cocked his head down and puffed the squiggly fringe aside.

“You got the flowers?” he said.

 _This_ was what Louis was going to be remembered by. He would be the bloke who gave Harry Styles a black eye.

“You’re such a dick,” Louis said, heart somersaulting as the little bravery Harry had gathered dropped from his face.

Harry puckered his lips. Louis held it in to give him a chance at self-defence, but he stayed frozen in that absurd expression.

“Suddenly Liam is the almighty saint?” Louis said. “Like you couldn’t do anything good without him, or at least by yourself? Let alone have one of the _little people_ help you out once in a while? It’s not like I expected to be praised or mentioned, but I thought you had enough guts to be honest. Have some god damn faith in yourself. And why do you have to give him so much credit? So you’ll stay friends rather than rivals and prance around town with your pompous arses and shit gold? I get that you have an image to keep up. You just don’t have to be such a twat.”

A wave rolled down Harry’s face, smoothing his confusion where it passed. It wasn’t the _I fucked up_ realisation that Louis had wished for. Not close enough. Harry sucked in his cheek, glancing to his shoe while Louis’ words dripped out in the murmur of feet to the pavement.

Louis shook his head and swallowed a sigh. One of his hands twitched.

“Did you just come to hear about the flowers?”

Harry nodded. His eyes lifted from his caked shoes.

“Come with me,” he said.

Louis frowned.

“Your advice worked last time,” Harry said. Louis couldn’t argue with that. “If you don’t mind I think you should follow me to the studio. No one will stop you from taking credit.” He smiled. “It’s even more melodramatic backstage.”

Going behind the scenes, nicking pointless souvenirs from the cast, receiving more flowers than a normal-sized man can carry. Louis examined the store just a few feet away. Plastic carpets and rollers flitted past his eyes—scrunched on his floor, leaving only nooks speckled in royal blue, or wine red; dents in the wall from a cheap ladder; rips in one of his shrunken tees. Harry stood in the middle of the mess, an escape from it.

“When are you heading?” Louis said, swallowing when Harry’s gaze wavered. “Right _now?_ ”

“You don’t have to come today,” Harry said. “I was gonna go after I’d found you, so.”

His hood had fallen several inches down his skull and exposed bangs of morning hair. Louis tucked away the crumpled paper in his hand. _Right now._

“I’ve got a car?”


	2. Chapter 2

Harry’s Dacia stank of ingrained smoke and had a dent the size of a head in the bonnet. The seat spat dust in Louis’ face when he sank into it. He flew up.

“Here,” Harry said, already reaching back to cover it with a blanket.

Upon seeing functioning seatbelts, Louis’ shoulders sagged and he could recline. At least it wasn’t a death trap on the inside.

The engine barked when Harry twisted the key and the car shuffled away from where it hogged the pavement, steering clear of citizens. He adjusted the rear-view mirror and, with a chaste glance to Louis’ steeled form, headed out of the city.

The car jerked, howled and dragged itself onto skewed dirt roads. Rain bombarded the windshield, drumming like hail on the metallic roof. Louis dug his nails into the seat and stared at the Magic Tree jolting between the two of them.

“So, what do you work with?”

Louis slanted his head. Harry slouched forward in his seat, knuckles taut over the steering wheel and tongue poking out between his lips.

“Bookkeeping,” Louis said. “Am I actually allowed to come with you or was that an excuse to get my hopes up?”

“I doubt you’ll make more of a mess than I do regularly.”

Louis fixated his eyes on the Magic Tree again. He wanted to clarify that he didn’t live with his mum anymore, that he’d gotten the flowers because he stopped by there often. He also wondered what else Harry knew about him, other than his alternative address— _how_ he knew it. Nothing would wound his ego more than giving Harry the victory of defeat.

Gravel shot up under the car, a lone crackling in the sullen wilderness. Louis didn’t hear anything else for the rest of the ride.

The car rolled into a peaceful halt behind the studio twenty minutes later. Harry finally straightened up with a grimace and rolled back his shoulders, dragging a hand through his hair. The engine died and Louis unearthed his nails from the seat. While Harry checked the dashboard, Louis stepped out of the car, praising the slip of roof over his head and the crisp nothingness in the wind. He patted his pocket to count keys and phone.

Not enough time had passed before Harry escaped the car himself and unlocked the building’s backdoor. Heat glared from inside, streaked Louis’ face in a jumble of fragrance and old wood, and he followed Harry through the narrow corridors. Pipes dove in and out of the walls and Harry crooked his back where they treaded forward. The labyrinth opened up when Louis spotted several doors lining the walls, name signs tacked on each of them.

“I don’t think I’ll be of use for another hour or so,” Harry said, cracking open the door with his name on it. “The make-up department is usually quick, so.”

Empty bags of crisps and energy bars had been pressed into an overflowing bin, hidden away behind stools and winter attire. A stack of paper protruded from the chaos on Harry’s desk. Next to it stood a small whiteboard, scribbled full of signatures and sticky notes.

“Your crib?” Louis said.

Harry gave a short laugh. He leaned in the doorway, nibbling on his lip. “I ‘m gonna go and see how things are progressing, wanna come?”

Louis skimmed his eyes over the chipped paint on the carpet, the script’s folded corners and its _Hail Howard_ font, a nearly empty bottle of champagne. Bobby pins for his mum would be good, but autographs? An unrevised script?

“As long as I’m welcome,” Louis said, treading out in the corridor. The building emitted a homey vibe now that its inside branched out in rooms where he could move without jamming his toe into broken equipment.

“Some bring their folks sometimes, or siblings and friends,” Harry said. “Most are pretty relaxed about it.”

He stopped to shrug off his coat, reaching out his hand for Louis to do the same. Voices found their way through the door before them—aggravated, spiking the air with tension. Harry wore the look of slight discomfort as always and they entered the unruly sphere.

Liam Payne’s face distorted in a snarl towards a piqued Elizabeth Grace, Miss Tomlinson’s favourite actress on the show, while both co-owners of _Mary’s Corner_ swung fists and kicks at one another. The owners manoeuvred around tables and dangling chords, past the arguing couple and grazed the opposite wall by dodging a blow. Louis hadn’t had the time to memorise their names due to his Harry Styles frenzy, but he recognised them when they froze upon seeing him.

“Don’t just hang ‘round there, come in,” the one with the glass-cutting jawline said, smacking the taller owner’s head as a final word in the matter. The taller greeted them with a dawdling wave.

It wasn’t until Elizabeth Grace broke out in a smile and left Liam without recoil that the air lost its toxicity. When Harry didn’t react either, Louis tried to choke down the confusion boiling in his chest. He swayed involuntarily as Liam flashed his teeth, strolling up to them.

Liam smacked Harry’s back, the first step of his ritual in every interview the two starred in together, but instead of latching onto him, Liam narrowed in on Louis like he belonged there, still sporting a beam. For a second, Louis was sure his heart collapsed.

“I thought you were gonna bring the missis,” Liam said, shaking Louis’ hand nonetheless. “Is that why you look like a dead man walking? Is she still recovering at home?”

Harry rubbed his eyes after a long stare into oblivion.

“None of that,” he said. He headed straight for the coffee buffet before Liam could pipe up.

“You’re not his flatmate, are you?”

“That’s Louis,” Harry said.

“Hello,” Louis said in a breath.

Once Liam sought entertainment elsewhere, Louis’ gaze fleeted to Harry, whose lips smacked to the rim of his mug before he cocked his head back, and to Elizabeth who stirred sugar into her beverage.

Liam could occupy himself with rolling thumbs for thirty seconds. After that, he straightened up so his frame filled up the high seat, tapped his heel to its leg. Hollow claps rang out. Louis took a deep breath and regarded him on his wooden throne.

“You’re not the psychic either?” Liam said.

To his left, the owners perked up and slid into ratty chairs of their own. A nutty aroma wafted from their cups.

“I doubt that,” Louis said, his brows sunken while his posture loosened.

“Oh, yeah, so you’re not filled in.” Liam waved his hand. “This is a major hot-spot of spiritual fuckery. The other side has come to seek vengeance. The end is nigh.”

Harry joined them with a platter of seed-smacked biscuits. His fingers brushed Louis’ wrist on the way, urging him along. Stealing each other’s space while seeking seats, Louis took the chance to lean into him.

“I feel like I should get this,” Louis said, tone hushed, “But the coast is clear, right? They’re not actually pissed?”

Harry snorted quietly into his coffee. A smile hinted behind the veil of light amusement.

“Some heated scenes are coming up,” he said. “As for Mr and Mr Mary I don’t know what they’re playing at. They’re probably the nicest characters in the whole series.”

“Except for when they covered up Abbey’s murder, or socked Mrs Harvey in the face.”

Harry met his gaze, held it, just long enough for Louis to see his reflection in his eyes, and said, “Except for then.”

Elizabeth delivered a smack to Liam’s knee. He barely reacted.

“Would you stop staring at it like it’ll explode?” she said.

Loose cables meandered around a ceiling joist and knotted together every other inch. Duct tape kept spotlights in one piece. Liam’s eyes bulged with every creak from the construction.

“When the damn psychic gets here, I will.”

“Someone’s coming?” Harry said and stopped picking at the plate of biscuits.

“Yeah, mate, Elizabeth’s objections made it through. Rich flipped open the yellow pages and called the first bloke he saw. Everyone’s rejoicing.”

“For being terrified, you can’t afford to be as pessimistic as you are,” Mr Jawline said. “It’s you and Colin against the ghosts.” He nudged the other owner for emphasis.

“But Colin shat himself,” Liam said. “No, I’m not gonna sit here and defend myself. It’s just not what Sterling would have wanted. Hell, none of this is done with him in mind. I will exorcise this place myself if no one comes within five minutes.”

“Nothing can be exorcised before Edmund gets here,” Colin said with a glower.

“It’ll be like Ghostbusters,” Harry said, his voice weighing between lilt and wobbly, “Minus the costumes.”

Liam groused. “This will be Paranormal Activity if anything and my insurance company will go bankrupt if it injures me.”

Mouth stuffed with crackers, Louis assessed the actors before him, how the atmosphere chilled, how their coffee break spiralled into frustration. An underlying worry swallowed the room, too thick for Louis to butt in when the others’ speech diminished until the creaking above consumed their voices.

Metallic screeching boomed out, amplifying into a wail that had him clawing at his armchair. Sunshine spilled onto the grimy floor as an entire wall was forced open, far away for a handful of silhouettes to rise against the white. Louis couldn’t have sat there for more than ten minutes, yet his eyes seared at the lighting. Harry peeked through his fingers, pushing his hand forward as if he could shove it back out.

Edmund Rich’s ugly mug brought the dread back, for a second, before a patch of blonde stalagmites bobbed into the hall. Obnoxious jewellery hung from the man’s neck, more brilliant than his spiked hair. He led the production team ahead with his chin jutted up. His eyes zeroed in on the snack feast while Edmund did his best to straighten up over the man, use every piece of leverage he could find, and looked down at the snacking assembly. Only Harry challenged the creator in height.

The man’s necklace tinkled as he stopped under the spotlights, and the rest halted at a safe distance behind him. He stuck a thumb into the air.

“This is fairly recent,” he said. Above him, the cables swung. He twisted his thumb to a cloaked picture frame hidden in a nook. “That’s older, but still active.”

“We don’t need your brilliance, we just need the spirits banished,” Edmund said.

“ _This_ is the psychic,” Louis said under his breath.

Liam gaped. “’Still active’?” he said, frozen halfway out of his seat.

The man’s eyes sparkled as he turned to the actor. Edmund sauntered behind him, his shadow blooming to the size of Greenland next to the man’s Iceland.

“Guess I’ll welcome myself then,” the psychic said, hurdling forward to shake hands with the cast. “Niall Horan, renowned medium and pie-eating champion. I’m here to save you all from an imminent death, from what I’ve heard—“ He spun on his heel to Edmund, “—which isn’t much.”

“We’ve had furniture breaking in front of us and this lady who won’t stop serenading,” Liam said. “I still hear her in my sleep.”

“No apparitions? Physical injuries?”

“Physical injuries…?” Liam glanced to Colin, who still fumed. He opened his mouth to continue.

“Not yet,” Elizabeth said. “There’ve been marks on the wall, like scratches appearing within four minutes of our absence.”

“I _am_ saving you from an imminent death,” Niall said.

Only now did the incense soak them, drifting in sultry waves as Niall discarded his jacket amongst them. The thyme and bark scent lingered when he left for the sealed door to the corridor of loges. He rested his palm against the steel. During the time it took for silence to settle in the hall, he kept grimacing. Without a word he detached himself and strolled across the floor to the hoard of equipment where he crouched. After that he observed the cloaked painting.

When the room had stayed silent for minutes he walked back, fumbling with something in the pocket of his sweatpants.

“Edmund, I will need the studio to myself for a day soon enough,” he said, shaking out a pair of gloves. “If you don’t want to fall victim for this energy I suggest you spend as little time as possible in here. You positively reek, and I say that as a human being. The rest of you should be fine if you tread lightly. I’ve felt multiple presences already and none of them are benevolent. However, that doesn’t mean they’re all here to slaughter you with tumbling spotlights.”

“You can’t have the studio,” Edmund said.

Louis jumped at Liam’s sharp inhale next to his ear. Liam leaned into Elizabeth, hissed, “All this time and when the bloke finally gets here he’s not _allowed?_ ”

“It’ll cost, make my wallet bigger,” Niall said.

“We cannot afford to pause the production. Things have stalled for far too long, and no demon can change our deadline.”

Niall sniggered. “Oh, these aren’t demons.”

Liam broke free from the cluster.

“Okay,” he said, “but psychic, I need to know one thing; is this place built on a pet cemetery?”

“Stop talking and thinking, chill out and let me be,” Niall said, his attention straying as he spoke. “The basement smells even worse than you, Eddie. Take me there.”

Edmund’s face fell faster than anyone could contain their laughter. They quieted when he came over to their coffee assembly and scooped up Niall’s jacket with his fingertips. The click of his heels distracted poorly from the sight of Niall caressing a wall. The stalagmite hair flattened when he dumped the jacket on Niall’s head.

“Eat lunch while you’ve got time,” Niall said and marched towards the iron door. “Prepare for statements as well. Whether or not the public knows, that’s something you lot will have to discuss, and whether or not a group session or individual chatting would be to prefer.”

They slithered out the door with a bang. The cameramen headed back out in the pallor, closed the massive gates when they passed. A rope of light trickled between.

Elizabeth kicked off her heels and dug up a box of take-out from a rucksack hung behind her chair. The owners of _Mary’s Corner_ followed suit. Balancing transparent containers along each arm, they supplied Liam and Harry with one box each. Before Louis could ask for a vending machine, he received a bowl of chicken salad in his lap.

“I’ve got you covered,” Harry said.

He jammed a plastic fork into his own lunch. The sticky smell of pancakes whipped up the hunger in Louis’ stomach, and while he unravelled the salad he watched Harry stab the dough over and over. One of the fork’s tines had snapped, earthed somewhere in those orange fields. Liam frowned at his stack of pancakes, and Louis guessed Harry must have split his meal to give Louis something. He wasn’t going to argue if the result was Liam moping through lunch like a toddler.

By the time Louis got back to his own business, everyone had stricken up a conversation.

“He doesn’t give two shits about the rule book, does he?” Harry said, bumping knees with him.

Harry’s body reached beyond their seat, but somehow he had shrunk in place without elbowing Louis’ eye or crotch—for which he couldn’t be more grateful.

“Unconventional bastard,” he said.

The dazzling jacket flashed before him—how Niall’s hair must have been made up of steeled hair extensions to be as long as his forearm, that he surely has a closet of fur coats and last year’s boots—and Louis chuckled around a lump of cold chicken. He dropped his cutlery and grasped his knees. No one looked to him and he didn’t care to know why, just forced the lump down and finished off with a snort. Hunger overtook him and he pushed aside the shame lurking below to cut everything into smaller pieces.

Harry observed his motions with a smile, a small piece of pancake lingering in the corner of his mouth. A faraway sheen coated his eyes, over their usual mellow depth. Soon enough he looked back to his own meal.

 

✘

 

The days Louis spent holed up in his flat decreased in numbers. The buckets of paint started to collect dust and he didn’t bother to clean them. He hadn’t allowed anyone to pop in yet, caught up in the plethora of work he had put off. As far as his mum knew he had already painted the flat.

In the middle of an after-work dinner with his colleagues, a company of twenty or so came in and Louis choked on his beer when he glimpsed Leo Hartland in the cluster. Nick nudged his calf and wiggled his eyebrows so blatantly that their colleagues glanced their way, but Louis didn’t register. Soon he differentiated familiar faces in the group. Liam Payne patted Leo’s shoulder, even ruffled his hair, and Leo reciprocated by flicking his ear.

It didn’t take long before Louis offered the rest of his meal to Nick and hid in the toilets to cool down. It had been one thing to bust ghosts with the new cast instead of getting his life in order. Other things had been on his mind then. Now that he had dealt with bills and helped his mum prepare for his sisters’ imminent visit, he had a lot more space to be awe-struck.

He debated bracing himself for the rest of the dinner or wanking, when the door creaked open. With his trousers still zipped, Louis froze and gawked at the shadow sneaking into his stall. Boots clicked against the linoleum. The person tried to tug his door open and a gravelly “Oh, sorry” caught his curiosity. He burst out of his cubicle.

Harry’s eyes blew out where he stooped towards the toilet.

“Gotta piss,” he said.

“Yeah, sure, just give me your number.”

“Can I do my business first…?”

Louis blinked.

“Okay, but I need a favour from you.”

Harry nodded and slithered into the cubicle. Louis rested his head to the stall door, arms crossed and gaze fixed at the tiny messages scribbled on the mirror’s edge.

“Don’t listen,” Harry said.

“I’m not.” Louis shook his head. “I’m not, I swear. Are you close with Leo?”

“Wait, Mr Hartland?”

“Mr— Yes, I need to you take pictures of him for me. Well, it’s actually for someone else. If you could get his autograph I would appreciate that too.”

Flushing rattled the pipes and Louis straightened up before Harry could open the door on him when making his way to wash his hands. Louis combed back his hair and slipped out his phone. He dropped it in Harry’s damp hands. He got it back with a new contact.

“I’ll message you once you’re seated, all right?”

Harry croaked an answer which Louis took as affirmative. Louis patted his shoulder, halfway out the door.

“Thanks, mate.”

To hope Nick wouldn’t mention his extensive bathroom break when he got back would be to challenge fate. Right when he had snuck back to his seat, a grin spread over Nick’s face.

“Should we watch out for stains on the stall doors?”

Louis forked some of his cool steak, refraining from dumping it on his colleague’s crotch. “Unlike some people I can keep it in my pants, thank you very much.”

Since then he had received numerous awkward angles of Leo’s chin and Harry following up with an, “Is this okay?”, to which Louis would reply, “How short are you to be taking pictures up his nose?”

The mission carried on to the next week, when his phone buzzed with Harry’s paparazzi expertise. One of the pictures revealed Leo and Liam’s faces over his entire screen, something that gave Louis a head rush from how fast he sat up. Those honey eyes, the streaks of grey in his hair, and sure, Liam’s gleaming teeth were there, but this much progress hadn’t been made before. No one needed to know if Louis printed the picture out and cut it in two to tape up among the sketches on his wall.

 

✘

 

Interview requests began to flood Harry’s phone, for which he would be the sole target. They had come before, usually forwarded from Elizabeth or Liam, where they would sit in a panel as a backdrop for the older crew and certain fan questions directed to the back row. Now they aimed only at him.

Harry stopped every two feet to glance at the device. His food cart lagged behind, propping up a road block for costumers following his footsteps. Many gave him pointed stares though they did not see beneath the hood. Zayn remained a few steps ahead, squeezing and weighing oranges. Even he had resorted to a hooded style.

When the shelf of taco supplies came into view Harry stuffed his phone away on silent. Zayn lingered on a jar of salsa while he wandered up, slumping against the shelf so his curls fell out. Zayn tucked them back in.

“It’s tiresome,” Harry said. “I want to buy some bloody nachos and fuzz over you in this store. It’s too much sometimes. Today it is.”

“In another life,” Zayn said, returning to the myriad of salsa.

“Don’t start that now—“

“I’m just trying to ignore it, all right? I’m running, is that so wrong?”

“You were never supposed to be in this scene. I don’t want to continue hurting you like this.”

A group of elderly people trundled by. Harry adjusted their hoods, brushing Zayn’s cheek as he pulled back. Breaths escaped his lips only to rush back in and leave him choking.

“Please tell me it isn’t over.”

It crept into his chest when Zayn mapped out his face in the glaring lights, the salty wave that split him open, seared his wounds. He wanted to dive past the cloak of car exhaust to clutch and inhale him. People kept walking past them.

Zayn reached over, put back the jar and mouthed an “I love you” in his ear, and when he stood tall said with a hushed voice, “You can have the flat for a while. I know a place I can stay.”

Harry looked to his clenched fist, to the groceries hogging his basket, realised how trivial this scene was. They could have been debating who should pay here and who would rent a movie.

“You changed my life,” Harry said, pressed past the guilt and sharp abandon. “I really thought we would make it.”

“We’ll take goodbyes later, yeah?”

Harry nodded, refastened his hood. Comforting words died on Zayn’s lips as they parted and pursed and the aisle crowded. Harry hoped their roles would be reversed out of the public eye—to talk and hold and breathe in private. A dull smile treaded over Zayn’s face.

“Which type of salsa do you want?”

 

✘

 

For the first time, Louis watched _Hail Howard_ alone. His mum had recorded the episode at home in order to dine with his sisters—“ease into things”, she had said—which left Louis to his own with tea and a can of noodles. He dimmed the lights, thumbed Leo Hartland’s cheekbone on his wall and settled down in front of the telly.

Just as the final commercial break of the ninth episode ended, the telly snapped off, as did the only other light in his kitchen. It took a moment for him to register and jump up to inspect the damage, pulse hard in his throat. His neighbours suffered a blackout as well. The dark reached across abutting streets, the sky wept, and he didn’t have enough blankets.

Nails scraping the hewed windowsill, Louis grasped the duvet on his shoulders and brought its edges together over his chest. His sweatpants ended at his calves, their strings never tightening properly around his waist. Chills from the fresh summer night licked his toes and pushed him back to the safety of his mattress.

Once he had scattered the room in candles he expected the power to be back, but no matter how many times he flicked the telly, it wasn’t resurrected. He cussed, huddled under long-sleeved shirts and socks, scrolling through his contacts. He opened _Nick_ with a groan.

_Is your power killed too?_

He had barely dropped the device when it buzzed again. Harry’s name cut through the night.

_Yes. We actually live close to each other._

Louis held one of the candles to the screen and squinted to not be mistaken again. Indeed, _Harry Styles._ He sighed, twisting the phone in his hand several laps. Phone pressed to his ear, the signals rang out until Harry made his presence known with a cough.

_“Louis? You all right?”_

“Evening,” Louis said. “My mum ditched me tonight. No, that’s not what I wanted to say. She didn’t do that.” He bit his nails. “It kinda sucks to be alone.”

_“Tell me about it.”_

“Aren’t you watching the series with your roommate?”

_“He’s at someone’s house. Co-workers, I think. This exhibit’s coming up that he needs to prepare for. He’s an artist.”_

Louis nodded, nibbling at the pad of his thumb. The line crackled with Harry’s breaths.

_“You wanna be less alone?”_

“That would be great,” he said. “Won’t you be stalked by paparazzi?”

 _“They aren’t camping up my ass, you know?”_ An ill-hidden smile shone through Harry’s voice. _“It’ll be safe. I’ll be safe.”_

“I’ll text you my address—the current one.”

_“See you in a few.”_

Louis barely managed to wipe the grin from his face. He must have been such a sad sight there, alone in the black, smiling to himself. It vanished when he realised that his cupboard was limited to empty cans and stale bread. He sent off another text.

_Get snacks._

When he showed up, Harry didn’t mention his change of flat. Or the state of it. He handed the bags of crisps to Louis in exchange for a towel, which he tore through his wet hair.

“Didn’t know how much you ate,” Harry said, drying the side of his face.

“Probably all of this since the telly’s dead. I didn’t get to see the episode’s ending.”

Harry shrugged off his coat, folding it to his chest while he curled in on himself.

“Didn’t miss out on anything,” he said.

“Do you say that as a viewer or as an actor? Let’s sit before your balls fall off.”

They huddled up on the cover Louis had tossed over the mattress. Harry shuddered so badly that Louis almost gave up his blanket. Their reflections in the telly sunk into the wall, lit by fickle candlelight too thin to bring warmth, so Louis gestured for Harry to stand for a second while he ridded the bed of sheets.

“I haven’t gotten around to moving boxes yet, so here,” he said, removed Harry’s soaked coat from him and replaced it with the sheets.

Harry thanked and cocooned himself. They cracked open the first bag, sipping lukewarm tap water.

“Niall figured out who or what’s behind the attacks,” Harry said, well into the quiet.

“I don’t know if that’s fast or snail-pace for a ‘renowned medium’ like him.”

“Yeah.” Harry chuckled into his mug. “He said he’d known for a while but needed to polish his methods for actually helping out before he broke the news. Apparently they’re old cast members—deceased cast members—from the first seasons?”

“Like Beatrice Levi? Jonathan Pyke?”

“Sure. I mean, he didn’t specify, so…”

Louis sucked his fingers clean of salt, shaking his head.

“Wait, so he doesn’t know what to do about it?”

“He says he does but he’s been avoiding the studio. He made the announcement earlier this week. I just thought he’d be all over the place, wanting to do his job? Plus, Rich’s dislike for him isn’t as concealed anymore. He’s quite loud about it.”

“I’m surprised the poor man has been left alone this long in the first place,” Louis said. “Your pictures were brilliant, by the way. Well, the ones that weren’t blurred or partly covered by your fingers.”

“I tried to sneak,” Harry said, waving a crisp around. Louis gave an unconvinced nod. “There’s a young side and an experienced side in the studio. Mr Hartland is on the experienced one, I’m not, so he really only interacts with people his age. Liam caught on to what I was doing, didn’t ask why, just took the picture.”

“Ah, Liam.” Louis chugged his water. “How do you put up with him?”

“You don’t like Liam?”

“He’s just…” Louis blinked into the darkness, gaze swerving to the candlelight in Harry’s eyes. “He’s like I thought you would be, honestly.”

Harry kept chewing. His eyes locked ahead, as if Louis had disappeared in the shadows, rubbed the grease on his fingertips.

“He’s not a pompous arse,” he said, words deliberate, gentle. “He’s passionate about what he does and the people involved. Even people like Niall.”

It should have registered at this point, that Louis had befriended Britain’s hottest television star, but under the layer of stardom was the bloke sobbing by himself in a deserted restaurant. Liam fitted in somewhere in that picture—in the side painting them as human.

Louis nudged Harry’s shoulder. “You’re a talented actor. I’ve watched many interviews with you and the rest of the cast and I’m not sure I dare to tell you how many times I’ve seen the episodes that have aired. Most of the criticism you get is for things beyond your control. It’s difficult to compensate for a shitty script.”

Harry nodded, cleared his throat. “So, those pictures, are they for your mum?

Louis shuffled an inch, just to disguise the Leo Hartland shrine. If Louis had been the lipstick-wearing type, Leo’s face would be soiled with kisses.

“I’ve crushed on him since I was five or something,” Louis said. “Mum even fuelled it with photographs from this black and white photo-shoot that we put above my bed. I’ve still got them somewhere.”

Harry took a while to process that. After weighing the silence, parting his lips to speech and nibbling the skin from them, he reclined with a heavy sigh. He tilted his head to the ceiling and said, “I just broke up with my partner.”

Louis’ fingers curled, hesitant to touch him. They remained still.

“We’d discussed it,” Harry said, thumbing the side of his mug. “It’d been brewing for a while so I was expecting it. It was the whole celebrity phenomena. That wasn’t our life, but I chose it. Don’t mean to make it sound like I’d rather be there than here. It was mutual. Just, this flat is a good place for a blackout.”

The telly hissed a moment later. Light exploded through the flat complex, shadowing Louis’ living room through dull windows. Static breached the screen before a news anchor rambled about the worldwide weather and a streetlight’s oily lustre laid them awash.

“I’ll tell you what,” Louis said as he rose on wobbly legs, “I’m gonna set up my karaoke equipment and you prepare to sing some.”

Harry peered at him in disbelief. Louis wouldn’t have his protests.

They sang until the neighbours gave up hammering on the walls, until Louis’ throat suffered more than when he had drunken a pint, until the songs repeated and lyrics etched their tongues. As the first candles ended in a pool of wax, they discarded the microphones, took each other by the shoulders and swayed. Harry said, “I’m not heartbroken”, to which Louis said, “I know, but you’re one hell of a singer”. Harry hid his face and laughed.

Louis’ palms slotted with his shoulders, muscular yet thin enough to be elegant. He was convinced they would have contributed to clumsiness if the tempo upped, but as long as they were swaying he relished the strength under his hands. If he fell, Harry would haul him up.

Right before the breach of dawn, while night still rode over town, exhaustion came over them. They had waltzed and fox-trotted and sweat cooled on Louis’ forehead while Harry assembled his hair. Duvets and blankets piled on his mattress, the only safe haven on the dance floor. One of the mugs had been knocked over.

“Give me a second and I’ll ring a cab for you,” Louis said with a pant. It was sad to think that this was the most fun he’d had with someone since before his sisters left.

“Can you help me tie my laces, too?” Harry snorted, thumped against the door.  “Can on my own, no worries. My flat’s walking distance and I could use a shower. Walking alone in the rain, you know? Isn’t that supposed to be good?”

“For what?” Louis made out his swaying shape in the night’s gloom, the shadows falling in the hollow of his throat. “Getting mugged?”

“Need to cool down, gather my thoughts and all. This has been great, perfect post-break-up. Thanks for not having alcohol.”

“Thank you for coming over. It was one of my better blackouts.”

Harry grinned when pushing the door open and slipped out into the stairwell. When he entered the streets, Louis leaned in the window and followed him under the streetlights. Sunshine tickled the sky into a blush eastward.

 

✘

 

Louis had not suffered a hangover in months, so he had forgotten its nuisances when Nick and company rang him up for a night at the pub. Due to the sacred bond of childhood friendship, Louis had to accept. Nick was the kind of person who didn’t watch TV-series, and he certainly wasn’t the person who watched _Hail Howard_ on a daily basis. Louis made his last attempting of curing him the Christmas after they had landed a position at the same company by handing over the first season to him. It worked for three episodes.

It was during moments like these Louis could be thankful for his friend’s inept sense of quality entertainment.

Nick didn’t have to convince Louis to spill his guts about his recent weeks of absence, just refill his glass every once in a while and keep the conversation going. It helped that Louis did the same for him. The rest of the company scattered soon after they had entered the pub. Nick talked about his boyfriend and an eventual change in his field of work and Louis countered with talk about his sisters and his empty flat.

“It’s like a serial killer’s lair without the torture instruments,” Louis said, looping his finger over the rim of his cocktail. “I really need to get it cleaned up for the family reunion too, but so far I’ve only had one guest over and that’s during the blackout so he didn’t see anything.”

“Tell me his name so I know what I’ve got to work with,” Nick said.

Louis stared into his glass like he was the captain and it was the roaring sea, before downing it and snapping his fingers for another. “Harry.”

“Is he the bloke you got off with during our after work? Damn he was fit.”

“Don’t,” Louis said. “I’m not interested and with my luck he’s straight as shit. I don’t have time to chase ghosts anymore.”

“No need to chase when he’s already been around your place. I can’t see why you wouldn’t take a shot.”

“Because I single-handedly averted a Tomlinson family crisis and he’s busy and in a post break-up haze.”

“Post break-up sex,” Nick said. He clinked their glasses together and laughed when Louis spluttered.

“Well, if he wants to get laid, I’m here for him.”

The bulk shoulders under his touch, a sweet tang of salt and woody musk rattling the air, Harry’s greasy fingertips ghosting over his arm.

“I’m just saying; it’s not a bad idea. You might help him through some serious trouble. Post break-up sex helped during my first time as a dumped man.”

Louis looked out over the human sea where strobe rays framed the horizon and arms below flailed in a singular motion.

When he came home he cracked open a barrel of royal blue paint and slobbered a corner of the living room. It dribbled onto the newspapers taped below and tainted his hands, found its way beneath his nails. Smeared in blue, he ended up in the bathtub after fumbling with the basin for fifteen minutes in the dark.

Next day he woke with his fingers nestled into the bathroom rug. He only had to lift his head to remember why he had cut down on his drinking.

Banana flies danced around a half-finished container of grapes on the sink. Pictures of him and Nick grinding in the human cluster overtook his phone, as lock screen and the last fifty objects in his camera roll, some with a finger blurring them. At least they hadn’t snogged.

The living room left him frozen in the doorway. The vast white had been reduced. A splotch of blue spilled out in one corner.

A handful of Ibuprofens later his thumb hovered over two contacts.

_Harry Styles._

He dialled, lowered himself into bed. The beeping jarred through his skull so he distanced himself from the receiver. While waiting in agony he pressed his forehead, thought of how big a mess he must look. He blessed himself for not unpacking more than one mirror.

A low voice rustled the line, smooth to leave Louis’ headache untouched. _“Morning.”_

“Harry,” Louis said, his tone a borderline whine, “Listen, mate, all my friends are hung-over and inadequate. I’ve got a week or so to make my flat shine. I need you now. Are you busy?”

In the silence that followed, Louis wondered what he had done to be able to ring Harry Styles over as a natural cure to his morning after blues.

 _“The studio needs me at three,”_ Harry said after another beat. _“Want me to get painkillers? Blankets?”_

“What gave me away?” His voice cracked at the final word and sent him spiralling into raw coughs. “Okay, I’m hung-over. Please come. I have much to do today and my pain limits me.”

_“All right, you got any food?”_

Louis counted the noodles and canned beef.

“No. Fix that.”

Soft knocks hailed on his door not long after. He tried to hoist himself up in an opera of groans but settled down when the door opened and closed. A plastic bag floated into the living room and long legs followed. Soon he had Harry peering down at him. His expression could only be deciphered by the sober. The bag touched ground on the edge of the mattress.

“Leftovers,” Harry said once he had dragged a chair from the kitchen area and folded himself over it. “You’ve got a microwave, right?”

“Yeah, yeah, microwave.” Louis winced and clasped Harry’s knee for support.

“This place looks the same. Bit different in daylight.”

“I need your help with that,” Louis said, cooling his forehead on the back of Harry’s hand, and gestured. “I painted a corner.” He savoured the second of eased headache while Harry glanced away.

“Beautiful,” Harry said. “I see you’ve got the tools for it. What colours do we pick?”

Louis lifted aside his grocery bag. Mountains of buckets rose by his feet, one cracked open and its lid bespattered in blue, while the rest remained unknown.

“Let me handle that and can you take care of covering the floor?”

Minutes later they examined the wall behind the telly, with the single stained corner, newspaper scrunching under their soles. Tears filled Louis’ shirt, scars from years of accidents. He had feared that Harry would go bare-chested if he didn’t receive a threadbare tee of his own, so here Harry stood with one of Louis’ oversized pieces. It fit him perfectly.

“Forest green,” Louis said. His brush skimmed the edge of a barrel. It grazed over the cerise surface no harder than a breath, before he soaked it and flicked across his wall. The paint cut like blood on the white. Another wave, rubiginous, ripped forth.

He took Harry’s limp hand and made him flick a sliver of lime onto the mess. Muscles tensed under his touch, but Harry remained compliant as they cut the white in colour again. Harry spoiled his brush in a jar of baby blue, leaving Louis to stand back and observe.

Rainbow pearls trickled down the walls where they darted forward. They moved as one with paint-caked hands and smeared it over their clothes until the holes in their tees fused with the dotted rain. Its colourful wings unfolded from the middle of the wall so it licked the blank skirting and cornice, so it sprouted from the newspaper.

When Louis glanced to him, Harry sported a grin and lilac dots over his cheek. He managed to clutch the barrel despite his vigorous motions and gripped harder when Louis stole paint from it. Runnels dug through the wallpaper, cascaded down the immaculate skirting into pools by their feet. Louis would have worried if Harry’s abrupt laughter hadn’t distracted him.

They sat on towels on Louis’ mattress with matted hair and scraped their skin clean. Harry got up with his grocery bag while Louis scrubbed his elbow, splotched red. The wall had begun to cool before them. Louis studied it as his scrubbing faded. This was the controlled chaos he needed in his life, to make up for the lazy weekends and loneliness.

Harry joined him again with five plates on each arm.

“You didn’t have easier leftovers than tacos?” Louis said.

Harry served him a tortilla.

“Needed it out of my fridge,” he said, sprinkling maize over his piece. “Haven’t had this much fun since I still lived with mum.”

Harry wrapped up his meal and bit into it, one hand under to gather spill. Sauce skated down his chin.

“Should’ve picked something more graceful to eat, right?” he said once he’d swallowed.

“It’s anti-date food. Tacos are against romance.”

“Glad I didn’t bring it to work—probably would have made the bloopers.”

Louis’ plate wobbled and he held it fast with blown eyes, recovering from sharp coughs at the mention.

“Are you saying there will be bloopers this season?” he said. “You can’t take this back now. This means too much to me.”

“I’ll get you a signed copy.” Harry had the audacity to smile, maize falling from his mouth. He took the TV-remote after Louis’ silent permission and zapped through the channels. The two of them fit on Louis’ mattress without compromising space.

Neither had time to shower before they left midway through a soap opera, so they entered the studio wearing decent attire and colourful faces. Elizabeth cracked up at the sight of them and brought many of the cast members with her. Louis pulled Harry aside to thumb a streak of burgundy from his cheekbone. After that, a woman ran up to them and tugged Harry to make-up. Niall couldn’t be seen anywhere.

Louis settled down with paperwork and a book in the corner, one with the wall. Perfume wrapped around his throat, too concentrated in the narrow space. Nothing else indicated that people still breathed inside the building.

It had reached noon when the first break came. Louis had tried to keep his staring subtle, but then Leo Hartland strolled across set. Sighing, Louis buried his face in his book. He shouldn’t be here in the first place. He shouldn’t be decorating his home so carelessly when his family’s future could depend on the type of wallpaper in his flat.

Just as he got up to seek answers in Harry, the actor shouldered past him on his way out. Louis spun around to Liam towering over him, eyeing the archway through which Harry had gone. Something about his gaze chilled Louis.

Liam’s body curled away from the sight. His eyes found Louis mid-turn.

“Are you close?” he said.

“We had tacos together this lunch.”

Liam placed a hand on his shoulder. Heat soaked through his shirt.

“I gotta get back to set,” Liam said with a squeeze before drifting back to his crowd.

Louis left them behind. He ventured into the loge corridor where one of the doors stood ajar. Inside, Harry braced himself on the cluttered desk. Light spilled over his shoulder blades, taut against the fabric of his tank top, shoulders rising with each breath. Veins bulged from the back of his hands and they turned into fists when he threw a glance back to Louis.

As Louis perched on the only sanitary armchair in the room, Harry faced him.

“Louis, I… I’m not…” His head fell to the wall so he spoke to the ceiling. His throat bobbed. “I’m bisexual. I just broke up with my boyfriend.”

Sweat lines stretched over his face, side by side with his collar. He hadn’t looked this way since the restaurant incident.

“It’s the press, isn’t it?” Louis said.

Harry grunted and dropped onto a pile of clothes. “It’s everything. It’s this job, going grocery shopping, looking in the mirror. Staying hidden isn’t the hard part. I thought it would be. It’s being outside with everyone around and feeling like I’m an imposter, like I’m prancing around in a bloody costume.”

“The lies come free after a while, don’t they?” Louis said.

Harry slanted his head up as if he had been talking to air and this was his first response. Louis knew which question seared his tongue.

“How did you do it?”

Louis knotted his hands. “I outed myself in tenth grade. I got my hands on everyone’s numbers and sent one of those mass texts. People weren’t sure who’d done it at first, so when they asked I didn’t argue against the facts. It went smoother than it should have done. One night a few weeks later, October the fourteenth, someone trashed our living room window with a boulder.

“We all bounded down the stairs and saw them standing on the other side of the street, staring at us through the black. They had scribbled the rock full in red paint, with things that could have given me nightmares for years. I honestly don’t know why they didn’t. Mum and I wiped glass all night. I went to bed around four in the morning, barely got up to school and went to the nurse before lunch where I stayed until the day’s end. The thing is that I don’t think anyone at school did it.”

“But here you are today?” Harry said and Louis couldn’t blame him for his acid tone.

He smiled, tight-lipped. “And here I am today.”

Teeth deep into his bottom lip, Harry shook his head. “Wish you’d had something more pleasant to tell me.”

“Coming out is a dreadful bliss. You step from one mould to another, hoping you’ll be free from yourself. Once you get there you discover that it’s a different side to everything you have already experienced. For some, that side is better.”

“I can’t join you,” Harry said. “Maybe a year or so back, but now? It’d be suicide on multiple levels. Rich would have my head for making the ratings drop, I wouldn’t be able to sleep out of worry and they’d find my previous partners one way or another.” Bloody slits appeared when he released his lip. He lowered his voice. “I couldn’t do that to him.”

“Harry,” Louis said, “It will never be easier. It will just become more bearable.”

A moan dragged through the corridor outside, too strident to be natural. It rose into a wail at the end of the doors before the sound of glass hailing onto the floor found its way into the loge.

Harry looked too brittle to continue, so Louis said, “That must be your dead guests.”

Harry took the news with a weary smile.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lines read at the end are borrowed from _Jailbirds_ by _lilaccoffee_. Thank you for reading! Please leave kudos or comment if you enjoyed it. I would appreciate it a lot xx

The once somnolent flat shone in discounted glory. Plants curved through the orderly landscape, something Louis knew would calm his mum and surely annoy his dad. After a weekend of going full-on IKEA-mode and nagging his friends about second-hand decorating, the furnishing bathed in ripe summer light. Louis had dumped his childhood posters where they belonged—in boxes at his mum’s. Paintings would replace them when he had time to hunt for new material.

For the occasion he had bought a bed frame—right from production—and a bedspread to match. It hadn’t left any time to stock up with groceries and so the plan had a clear flaw which kept him up at night. Why had he bothered so much with the interior when everything could fall apart by the contents in his cupboards?

During his morning tea session, someone knocked on the door. It was quiet enough to come from another flat. Considering the thin walls, he passed it off as such. He stirred his tea again. A cough sounded in the stairwell, soon accompanied by another knock.

Louis put away his cuppa and crept to the door after grabbing a pair of trousers on the way. His mum tried to smile when he opened up and pulled him in for a hug. The stairwell already stank of tension. His oldest sister pranced up behind and with her a litter of cheerful girls. As his mum disappeared into the flat, he spread his arms for each of them, praying they would be clingy enough to make the embrace last for hours. They smelled sweetly of home. Buried in their hair he blocked out his mum’s distant compliments on the kitchen.

His dad stood before him the moment they let go. With his poor dye-job and straightened demeanour, the man had aged backwards.

Anxiety welled up in Louis as his sisters removed themselves from the scene and his dad stepped towards him, taller than he remembered. The scent of pines and dirt drowned him. Before he knew it, an arm braced over his back and he pressed to his dad’s chest. Eyes wide open, he stiffened by reflex. The arm eased off as the mandatory greeting ended. Louis took a deep breath of the stairwell’s cigarette stench and city exhaust, stepped aside from the door.

No matter the effort he had put into decorating, all family members froze in the living room. Louis treaded up behind them, arms crossed and heart rate heightened.

“Pretty wall,” his oldest sister said.

He rubbed his temple. “Thanks, Lottie.”

Still spellbound by the colourful travesty, no one noticed his disappearance. He racked through the kitchen cupboards, hoping he had forgotten something, even a tiny piece. Relief slammed onto him as his hand closed around a bag of biscuits. He arranged them on a platter and delivered them to his sisters, along with water. They landed on the floor by his coffee table to dig in without a worry. He leaned back in the archway and watched them. His parents squirmed in the middle of everything.

“Your hair has grown,” his dad said.

Louis made the mistake of toying with the tips of it, rubbing between his fingertips. Mr Tomlinson smiled. Louis fondled his stubble, dropping his hand.

“You left when I was in my teens so I’ve had some time to let it run wild.”

The smile stiffened.

Miss Tomlinson had seated herself by the table, her gaze still on the wall. She hadn’t acknowledged his dad since she stepped inside. Maybe they had seen each other in the street outside, when he rolled up with their daughters and thus debated silently who would enter the stairwell first. Louis wondered what Harry’s family gatherings were like.

His sisters consumed the biscuits within minutes, but were smart enough to strike up a conversation where they sat. Louis hoped this would be it. Everyone could leave him alone after and fix the mess on their own.

Mr Tomlinson caught sight of his Leo Hartland shrine.

“Is that your boyfriend?” he said.

Childhood memories coiled around Louis, strained where he tried to stay relax in the room’s outskirts.

“I’m not _just_ gay,” he said. “Can’t I have hobbies?”

“That’s an actor,” Miss Tomlinson said, as if she would ease the fall when he had already touched ground.

His sisters quieted. Mr Tomlinson’s shoulders dropped down an inch.

“I don’t know what you want me to say, Louis.”

“Just act like my dad for once. It’s not a big deal.”

Mr Tomlinson turned to his ex-wife for guidance before looking to Louis.

“I am, Louis,” he said. “I haven’t changed. I don’t look at you differently.”

“You would never talk to the girls the way you talk to me. I don’t want you to be a part of my family.”

His mum rose from her seat and reached for him. He stepped back.

“You can all fix this when I’m not there. I can’t understand why the girls want to live with you. I don’t need you back when you haven’t realised what you messed up in the first place.”

“Perhaps we should leave,” Miss Tomlinson said into the air.

“Perhaps,” Louis said. He sighed at his tone. “Sorry, mum.”

She gave another tight-lipped smile before motioning his sisters out in the hallway. Mr Tomlinson glanced at him when following behind. Louis stared out the window.

The family welled down the stairwell when Louis got there. Only one of his sisters stayed behind to tell him a proper goodbye. He shouldered the doorway and cocked his head to her.

“I like living with him,” Lottie said. “It’s different, because you were the oldest, but I want you to know that.”

“It’s different because I came out,” he said. “He keeps obsessing over it. I’m not a goddamn child. I pay my own rent.”

Lottie seized his arm before he could press her out the door.

“They treat us like that, too,” she said.

“Yeah, but you still are goddamn children.”

She relented once he smiled and left down the stairs with a wave. A moment later, the building drowned in silence.

 

✘

 

It was just past dawn when Louis stirred from sleep. Something vibrated persistently under his hand. He was convinced it was his vibrator and groaned until he heard the device beep with each vibration. Harry’s texts bombarded his phone.

_Louis I need you here ASAP, I’m at the studio._

_Actually Liam needs you too._

_Please come here, the backdoor is unlocked._

Louis refrained from checking the time and dove into the nearest piece of clothing. He hauled a cab a street down from his place. The vehicle huffed over cobble and swerved drunkards that staggered across the streets. Once it hopped onto the dirt road out of town, Louis stuck his head into the front seat and guided them. Before the driver asked what he did in the dead fields, Louis complimented him on the lack of cigarette stench in his car.

They stopped when the studio was a blotch in the flaming horizon. Louis ran the rest of the way. Dew speckled his clothes and the shy sun glared in his eye. Soon, the overwhelming darkness of the studio spilled over him. He wandered around the premises until his eyes had adjusted before he stumbled upon the gathering in a previously hidden room.

Niall perched in the spotlight on stage while the cast and production team were seated below him. He had exchanged his glamorous jewellery for a bundle of talons around his neck.

“Niall said he didn’t want to spend time here in broad daylight,” Harry said in a low voice when Louis slumped down beside him. “Sorry if I woke you.”

Louis shook his head.

“He needed to make an announcement, so we’re just waiting for the head of everything. He hasn’t spoken since he first came in.”

“Looks like he’s enjoying his five minutes of fame, anyway,” Louis said and gestured.

Niall had reached his arms out, staring into the light above. Harry chuckled.

Liam jumped from nowhere to the row behind them and breathed down their necks.

“Hey Lawrence,” he said with a pat to Louis’ head. He turned to Harry. “I saw Edmund lurking in the corridors. Whatever this psychic has planned, it ought to be good.”

Edmund entered a moment later. The murmurs settled down when he took a seat and Niall drifted back to his body. Earthed, the psychic sank down onto the stage with his legs crossed. Liam mumbled something about bloody meditating.

“This isn’t a request,” Niall said. His voice echoed. “It took little to realise what kind of problem you lot were dealing with. It was far harder to come up with a reasonable solution for it. Therefore I’m leaving you with a choice. Either your cancel the series, forget everything related to it and your roles in it. Or you get rid of Edmund Rich.”

When he didn’t receive any protests, Niall stepped off the scene and exited the room. Eyes gravitated towards the writer centred amidst the seating. Edmund’s shoulders rose and he examined his hands. He stayed put even as the whispers started.

“We will have to cast a new Rich,” Elizabeth said, leaned into their circle. “I’ve voted him off the island since day one.”

Liam looked out over the burning fields. “You know where I stand. It’s just that we’ve got two episodes left to shoot. Telly will catch up with us before we can make it. Firing him would be the dumbest thing we can do at this point in the production.”

“But also the wisest,” Harry said. “I know none of you like the path we’re going down now and I don’t either. The viewers don’t like it. There are dozens of people more fit for this task than he is. Please, Liam.”

“I will agree with you as soon as someone tells me why Mr Psychic gave us this ultimatum. Has no one considered the thought that he’s doing this to get back at the way he’s been treated?”

They fell silent. Liam groaned.

“Fucking hell, I’m going after him,” he said. Seconds later he had clambered from the seats and out the door.

“Our spiritual friends are just as pissed at Rich as I am,” Elizabeth said. “Wouldn’t it make sense that they’re pissed at him for driving this show into its grave? They’re old members of this debacle, for Christ’s sake. Just ask Leopold if the studio had this sort of activity in the nineties.”

Harry opened his mouth to retort when Louis jutted his head into their conversation.

“Have none of you read the debates around the show’s resurrection in the first place?” Louis said. “Most were satisfied with the original ending and those who weren’t came to terms with it later on. Then they announce a third season and Sterling Faulkner jumps off the bandwagon, after years of fuelling reunion rumours. Do ask Leo, someone, if Rich was anyone’s favourite out of the two. It shouldn’t have been surprising that things have gone the way they have. I’m sorry to say that.”

Elizabeth got up, wandered off between the rows. Darkness swallowed her for a moment before she returned with a tall man in tow. Louis’ throat dried. The spotlight etched into Leo’s beard and entranced Louis with its shimmer.

“What are you up to?” Leo said.

“Guessing why Niall wants to off our only writer,” Elizabeth said with a pat to his back. She filled him in on their discussion. Leo was the kind of person who spoke with his hands, so when they began to move, Louis barely heard what he talked about.

“You don’t come back for the sort of people like Mr Rich,” Leo said. “The temptation lies in the memories from previous seasons and in the fear of replacement. You cannot make a decision like that for yourself once you are involved. As others have said, you owe it to the characters. People like Mr Rich don’t do it for the sake of pleasure or duty. When he and Mr Faulkner were a duo they compensated each other, but rarely without quarrel. Their opinions deviated in many questions. It was Mr Faulkner’s show and Mr Rich stood for the marketing and control of the financial. Both stood as writers of the series and thus co-creators.”

The door slammed and Liam joined them again with a grunt.

“That’s fancy talk for saying he’s a gluttonous dickhead,” he said and straddled a chair, braced his arms on its back. “Sterling was my dad in the early days of the production and Edmund was the hammered uncle that came to visit. He wasn’t actually hammered, of course—he’s probably a teetotaller—but that was the gist of it. Anyway, the psychic wouldn’t tell a thing. He said he’s not coming back again and he’d rather we make the decision today—right now. I’m going with firing the bastard.”

“Can’t make an honest man out of him,” Leo said in agreement.

“Come on.” Elizabeth stood up. “Let’s throw him off the ship.”

Others outside their group followed, struck by the same idea. They swarmed to Edmund. He hadn’t moved since the announcement, but he paled, knuckles tightening on his armrest. His eyes only averted from the stage when the group of veteran actors joined in.

“Sterling isn’t coming back,” Leo said. “That does not mean you can have your way with his production anymore. Either you leave, or we do. Would it not be fun for the public to hear inside stories about the business here?”

“Hartland, don’t threaten me.”

“Oh, he isn’t threatening you—our spiritual guests are.” Elizabeth cocked her head. “Just get out before we phone the press. It would save us all a bunch of trouble.”

It took a while before Edmund said anything, let alone looked at them. Harry jittered in the background along with the younger members. The writer stood, towering all of them and narrowed in on Leo.

“I will be back in the morning,” he said. “Obviously you need some time to think this through. There will be no shooting today. Please, all of you, go home.”

He left the room in a stride under their gazes.

“There’s nothing that dickhead likes more than the press,” Liam said with a pat to every back in his vicinity. “Do whatever you like, but I’m gonna find that psychic and congratulate him on un-fucking our lives.”

While Liam hurried from the building with chunks of the production team in tow, Leo said, “I thought we could set up a team to cast a new writer. It would be beneficial to include some of you in that group as well members of the production team.”

Louis’ hand twitched. He had never wanted to volunteer for anything more than now. This wasn’t his crowd, he had no say in which direction the series would go for its finale. Instead, he nudged Harry.

People signed up for the committee when Harry turned to him with a “What?”

Louis gave him another nudge, arched his eyebrows and nodded to Leo. Harry’s cheeks reddened. He shook his head.

“Harry,” Louis said, placed his mouth by his ear, “You’re an amazing actor. You belong with the better half in this room, there is no reason you shouldn’t be with them to decide. You’ve got guts to set free, and this is your time for revenge. Make sure the next one is accepting, kind—someone who cares about your well-being.”

Harry squirmed. “I want in,” he said.

When the discussion died down, the crowd dissolved. Louis offered Harry two thumbs up. Despite his jittery demeanour, Harry responded with a grin.

“Things might work from now on,” he said. “Probably too soon to tell, while we’re still writer-less.”

“You won’t get a Sterling Faulkner, but you can’t get anyone worse than Rich. You have my word on that.”

Harry nodded and gestured towards the corridors. They left behind the small clique of Elizabeth and Leo, discussing what kind of qualities the new writer must have, and wandered through the building. Cables swung before them and fortunately, none of them sparked. Louis kept telling him how well he would do, that nothing could be worse with only two episodes left to shoot. Harry encouraged him to maintain the flow of praise to qualm his worries.

Silence enveloped them when the corridor of loges unfolded before them. They escaped the fusty basement into Harry’s loge of trash. Louis shut the door behind them and leaned against it, arms crossed. Harry fumbled with a new set of clothing.

“He really is your celebrity crush, isn’t he?” he said as he slithered out of his tee. “Mr Hartland?”

Louis smiled. “The one and only.”

He wanted to talk about how people only qualified as celebrity crushes if they were unattainable, not friends.

Harry compared two loose shirts, tossed them both into his pile. When he stretched, he let out a sigh, popping joints.

“He’d be mine too if he wasn’t fifty.”

Harry’s body closed up to his, one hand to the door above Louis’ head with something playful in his eyes. Curls danced over his forehead as he tipped his head. His lips yielded brilliant teeth.

“I’m so happy, Louis,” he said. Shadows crept over his muscles.

Louis thought back to the blackout, the feel of those shoulders under his hands, steady where they swayed. He brushed his palm over the joint. Harry ducked his head, smiling while his eyes lidded. His faint cologne shrouded them.

The back of his hand skimmed Louis’ wrist. When Louis did nothing but breathe, Harry brushed his knuckles over the skin. Louis inhaled the cologne’s salty undertone of ocean as Harry’s hand wandered up his side, gently urged him close enough to share air. A quiet gasp fell from Louis’ mouth when their chests touched. He slanted his head up, his eyes on Harry’s parted lips, pulse loud in his ribcage. Harry’s hand left the door to cup his cheek, fingers tangled in his hair.

Relief filled Louis when their lips bumped. He nudged into it by grasping Harry’s neck as those strong arms winded around him. The urgency heightened when he rutted against Harry, who jiggled the door handle to keep steady. Louis broke the kiss with a grin.

“Am I seducing you?” Harry said into his hair.

Louis plucked a stray curl from his forehead. “I thought this was post break-up sex.”

Harry pulled back and scrunched up Louis’ shirt in one hand. A serene glint still flickered in his eyes. He dipped down, sucked a kiss below Louis’ ear.

“Do you wanna fuck me?” he said. His kisses moved under Louis’ jaw, tilted his head back to the ceiling. Heavy breaths fell from Louis’ lips when teeth travelled down his chest and closed over his nipple, barely biting down.

They shed Louis’ shirt, fingers snug in each other’s belts as they grinded. Adrenaline rose in Louis’ like a sweet nausea and his pulse vibrated through Harry’s lips where they pressed to his throat. Harry left the undressing to him, but when he had loosened the belt buckle and tossed it to the floor, Harry stopped bruising his neck and kicked the jeans off.

“Here.” Harry reached for the desk drawers. He handed over a bottle of lube.

“Good to know you’re always prepared,” Louis said, discarding his trousers on one of the clothing piles. With liquid smeared on his fingers, he reached behind as Harry leaned over him again.

“You use condoms, right?” Harry said.

“Yeah.” Louis exhaled, his forehead tipped to Harry’s chest as his fingers dove deeper. “Touch me again.”

Harry stroked his arm, his side, before thumbing his nipple. Shy at first, the motions soon roughened. Hot wetness enveloped the other bud as Harry’s mouth came down on it, tongue flicking and teeth grazing. Louis sighed as he loosened up. His fingers left flaming prints on Harry’s shoulders.

Footsteps echoed at the end of the corridor outside. Louis bit his lip, whining low in his throat as Harry bit down. People outside conversed; some disappeared into their loges and others hung about in the hall. Louis’ hand shot out for a handful of curls when jolts rushed up his spine. Harry’s head levelled with his, grinning.

“Didn’t have to feel you up,” he said.

Louis wiped his fingers on his thigh. He cupped Harry through his underwear and chuckled when the actor groaned softly. He dipped inside.

“I see your point,” Harry said, grasping Louis’ wrist. Louis held his gaze with parted lips and kept jerking him, slow until Harry cursed into his mouth.

Wood scraped Louis’ skin when he braced his arms on the door, back curved. Harry accepted the invitation and peeled off his underwear. Air snaked around him before Harry held his hips and rutted against him. Louis hummed with the motion. He caressed his abdomen, fingers skimming over his cock, had Harry’s hot breath hitching by his ear.

Louis craned back. Harry’s eyes had blown out and he glanced down, paused the grinding to strip off his underwear. Louis’ arms encircled his neck before he could start up again. Harry kissed more boldly now. He hauled Louis’ leg up his waist and pressed a moan from the man.

“Quiet,” he said through a smile.

Louis grabbed hold of his shoulders, revelled the way the flexed as Harry wrapped him in his arms.

“Pick me up.” He rocked their crotches together to further his point.

Once up, Louis couldn’t feel anything beyond the muscles under him. They bulged as Harry slid on the condom, pecking Louis’ cheek while he sank in. Louis rested his head in Harry’s neck, hands soft over his back, caressing. Hands kneaded his ass when Harry adjusted and rocked into him. The wet slapping drowned out their quiet sounds of pleasure.

Louis’ head hit the door while Harry’s grip tightened on him, going harder when the voices outside picked up in volume. Raw kisses hailed over his neck where Harry chose to muffle his grunts. The desk mirror reflected their shuddery outlines, his bouncing legs. Louis couldn’t look at it for long before a whine bubbled deep in his stomach. He bit his lips, nails raking over Harry’s shoulder blades where they tensed.

They were a mess of bites and claws, marks blooming out and to-be bruises popping. Harry swallowed his sounds with a kiss to Louis’ open mouth, reminding them both to hush whereas Louis pleaded to go faster.

Louis let loose a whine when the orgasm rolled over him. The cologne’s salty tang mixed in the sweet wetness of their bodies. It encompassed him until it was all he could think, until he was sure to taste Harry for days. He came down gasping, door biting his back as Harry chased the same pleasure.

A final bite marked Harry’s finish and the actor cursed as Louis’ bounces slackened. Harry pressed him to the wood. Sighs replaced his rumbling. His legs wobbled when he pulled out, trying to hold up himself and Louis’ limp body. Louis dragged his lips across his heated neck while their breathing evened out. He went numb.

Harry stumbled over to the couch and lowered them both into it, opposite the mirror. Sweat glittered all over their bodies in the dusty light. Louis smiled, huddled up against Harry as an arm pulled him under. Nosing into his matted hair, Harry thanked him.

“Post break-up sex,” he said, drawing circles on Louis’ ribcage.

“I like that concept,” Louis said.

Their clothes crowded the only clean part of the floor. A scrunched condom rested atop them.

 

✘

 

Louis sat at lunch with his mum when the news came. Neither had brought up the Mr Tomlinson fiasco for several lunches. Louis knew she was waiting for him to bring up the topic and hoping that he wouldn’t shoot it down like during previous discussions. As long as she was content with that deal, so was he.

Toast crunched in his mouth, closed off the tense silence in the kitchen. His mum poured them both another cuppa. She raked her nail over the table top.

“Did you know that the writer for _Hail Howard_ has left the production? It was announced just this morning.”

Louis stopped eating. “Has he?”

“Apparently. They’ve already replaced him with someone—I can’t remember her name.”

Louis remembered Harry’s texts about her—still had them in his phone—about how her daughters had been great fans of the series and that it would have been unforgivable to ignore the opportunity. Louis couldn’t imagine the pictures of them going backstage for the first time, let alone meeting Harry Styles, a common interest of theirs.

His mum stirred her tea. “She’s gay, you know.”

“I do,” Louis said.

“How they have managed to keep the casting under the radar is beyond me. Rumours are already surfacing, that she’s the previous writer’s secret sister. I don’t care much for that, but it’ll be interesting to see how they answer to them in the press conference.”

Louis hadn’t been allowed back to the studio since the Niall incident and as if life decided to humour him on this one, work had begun to pile once again when everyone returned from vacation. Harry assured him that everything rolled smoothly behind the scenes and kept him updated on events such as the press conference at the end of the month.

“Given the episodes’ poor rating recently, she’s surprisingly optimistic, saying they can fix the season and offer closure,” his mum said and aimed for another toast. She snorted. “I need closure.”

“It’s going to be strange when it’s over. I don’t know what I’m gonna do when the production stops.”

His mum patted his hand with a gentle smile. “We can find another series.”

It didn’t help ease the rock in his gut, but he nodded. After wiping crumbs from his fingers, he rose from his seat.

“I have to head out,” he said. “Nick’s gonna be over in an hour.”

They came together in the hall. He spotted an empty sphere in the living room where Harry’s flowers had stood. He couldn’t bring that into conversation now.

“I’ll be over on Thursday with food,” he said. “Only two more episodes before we see the result of bringing her into the production. We can’t give up on it now.”

“Do you want to watch it in your flat instead?”

He froze. Shoelaces dangled from his fingertips. “Break tradition?”

“It won’t be ‘breaking tradition’. Everything stays the same. I like what you’ve done with the place. Besides, I’ve housed you for over twenty years. Isn’t it time you do the same for me?”

Louis stared at her.

“Would you be bringing food?”

She chuckled. “I can bring food.”

The tension he had done his best to ignore ran off him when they hugged. He buried his face in her neck, inhaled her familiar perfume. Heat welled up inside him—the same kind as when his sisters returned, right before his dad’s mug showed.

The rain had stopped once he stepped outside. Florists replaced sullen plants outside their shops and shy costumers emerged from cafés, stowing away their umbrellas. The rock sank deeper in his gut.

He couldn’t possibly return to this in a few weeks. He didn’t want to return to it.

The studio would close when the finale had been shot, levelled with the ground so nothing but endless fields marked the spot. He had lived there in his head long before he stepped foot in the building and inhaled the musty wilderness all around.

Before he had lunch with the cast he would have a sandwich by his desk at work, too far away to join the others until late afternoon. He would have left his flat blank. Maybe he would have fallen into routine with his dad, invited everyone over for dinner and made an honest effort. He would have continued thinking one night stands were a healthy option for him.

A flock of bleached stalagmites bounced through the scarce crowd ahead of him. He hurried his steps.

“Niall Horan!” he called, cursing his wheezing.

The bouncing ceased. The sun gleamed from golden chains around the psychic’s neck when he faced Louis. The flow of people split around them.

“You’re that kid,” Niall said.

“The paranormal activity is still in the works. It isn’t as violent, but it’s still there.”

“It’s no surprise they calmed when Eddie left the building,” Niall said with a shrug. “It was an angel and devil game between him and that other bloke you talked about—the runaway creator. Wouldn’t you lash out if you were left with the devil?”

Louis couldn’t reply to that.

“People die. Some move on, some attach themselves to a central place of joy or hate in their lives. My job isn’t to remove them. They will stay there until they’re ready to leave, but they will return to their idle state in time. Just wait and see when the series is over—if they pull off a good ending.”

His jewellery clinked when he walked away. Louis watched his shimmer disappear into the crowds.

 

✘

 

The press conference had taken off when Louis got back from work. Someone updated live on the bottom of the site. Too much time had passed for him to catch up. He yanked up his laptop and abandoned the table for his bed, huddled up in it. Hopefully he knew the important questions they had discussed from his time back stage.

Harry sat to the far right, hands clasped and lips curled into his mouth. Liam sat next to him at the edge of the table, for once quiet as the producer finished up the latest question. Louis exhaled when he checked the time so far. Only seven minutes.

_“This is a question for the actors and actresses of the show from Radio 1; how would you describe the contrast between working with Edmund Rich and Loraine?”_

_“It’s kinda like being re-birthed,”_ Liam said, eyes searching the crowd. Elizabeth slanted his head to the right journalist. _“I don’t think it feels stranger or easier for those who have been with it since the last decade to walk over like this, but obviously we all like a challenge, so this is just a new phase in the production for us.”_

_“Amanda from Channel 5 here, with a question to the older cast; has it been weird to film with such a large number of new actors? What’s the biggest difference between acting in the show now and acting twenty years ago?”_

Clicking cameras took over the silence before Leo leaned forward. He almost caressed the microphone before he spoke. _“It felt empty in the beginning, because you expect new additions but also people you have acted with for thirty or so episodes in a row. To come to set and realise that they are no longer in the production has for me been the largest difference. At some point I believe we also found it exciting to return to this unfamiliar environment. It is hard to not be drawn to this world. We knew that it would differ from the first instalments in the series but this has been a pleasant surprise to return to.”_

Others in the panel tuned in with their nods. Liam and Leo kept juggling questions with disarming smiles.

Louis kicked off his shoes. He wrapped himself in the duvet, let his shoulders fall. If he had missed something he could rely on Harry afterwards.

_“Who or what decided that Loraine Nagi in particular would take over from Mr Rich? What has been your favourite scene to act out?”_

Harry took the question.

_“Mine is one we wrapped up just yesterday, so I can’t tell you exactly what it is. You’ll know when you see it. It was one of the first scenes Loraine presented to us, so already at that point I knew she would fit the series.”_

_“Why did Edmund Rich leave the production?”_

_“That’s something we will leave for him to tell,”_ Loraine said. _“We’ve got a few other news we would like to address now, while we’re at it.”_ She fastened a curl behind her ear. _“One of the main reasons we conjured this conference was to confirm some rumours, including the mysterious fourth season. I haven’t been in touch much with Edmund Rich since his sudden departure, so we have very different approaches to the ending. I can confirm that there won’t be a season after this one has concluded. I believe Harry wants to make the next announcement.”_

Louis sat up, his hair tousled. He hadn’t heard anything about this. On-screen, Harry breathed courage through a shy smile. His gaze steadied as he looked over the human sea.

_“I want to say this now because there’s no way to do this kind of thing quietly, especially not in a series like this, and that thing is coming out. I like guys and gals.”_

Flashes peppered their faces, captured sweat streaks and dark eyes. For a moment, everyone was silent. Colour drained from Harry’s face, his jaw clenching. Someone shouted in the far back.

Liam eased his chair out, rose up to walk away. Harry’s throat bobbed as he swallowed and maintained a straight gaze to avoid the scene. Liam headed in the opposite direction, leaned down by Harry and patted his back. Soon he had the younger cradled in his arms. Hands scrunched his shirt and Harry hid his face for a moment as the flashes hailed upon them.

Liam tilted the nearest microphone away from them and whispered something to Harry before seizing him in a bone-crushing hug. Harry mouthed him _thank you_ when they parted. Wherever he glanced in the panel, his colleagues smiled. Loraine gave him a proud nod.

A hand crept up at the front. _“Mr Styles, do you have a boyfriend? Was it he who made you change your mind about liking women?”_

Harry offered a stiff smile. _“No, I’m still attracted to women. I’m bisexual.”_

_“Lucas O’Connor from The Sun here; do you prefer sex with women or men? Have you ever cheated on your partners?_

_“We know that Mrs Loraine Nagi has been openly gay for years. Since this crowd accepts her, why don’t you come out as gay?”_

Harry opened his mouth.

_“How many sexual partners have you had and were there more males or more females? Have you ever participated in a threesome?”_

_“How are your parents coping?”_

_“Anyone who wants to get dirt on my colleague’s sex life can discuss that outside with me and security when the conference is over,”_ Elizabeth said. Her knuckles whitened around the microphone.

The patter of cameras died down. Harry remained frozen in the spotlight with drab eyes as hands rose again. Liam’s palm claimed his shoulder and Harry sought his gaze when he ducked down. They didn’t speak.

_“What has made the greatest impact on you during this final season?_

Harry fought through a haze when Elizabeth answered.

_“In general, the chance to work with such an amazing team and fellow cast members. They brought together some truly inspiring personalities and there was never a dead moment behind the scenes. There are a lot of those moments to see on the DVD’s bloopers when that’s released.”_

_“Do you have any plans for a spin-off series in the future?”_

One steady hand lingered on Harry’s shoulder even when Liam dove into the conversation. During the pauses between answers, Liam turned to him. No one discerned their words from microphones stifled by Liam’s hands but their lips moved and curled into grins. Both sported calm expressions when the press conference concluded.

The laptop screen cut out to the regular site and Louis met his own reflection in the dark backdrop. He stared, mind racing. He should have been there, at least offered his help. Though Harry’s dead eyes imprinted his mind, the actor had never looked braver.

He fumbled for his phone.

_I watched the live stream. Want to come over tonight?_

Harry dropped by at dusk with a rolled up script in hand and ruddy cheeks. Louis restrained himself from re-enacting Liam’s hug with him the moment he slipped off his coat. It left a pool on his hallway floor. He waved Harry along without picking it up.

“You kept the wall?” Harry said.

“It was a major family hit, let me tell you.” Louis strode up to it.

Harry closed up behind him. One inhale of his brisk cologne soothed Louis’ nerves, which had haunted him since the live stream snapped off.

“Can I run lines with you?” Harry said. “I picked a scene that doesn’t give away too much. Figured you’d want to be as spoiler-free as you could until the episode airs.”

“I’d be honoured, but I’m obviously no actor.” Louis accepted the script and perched on the table.

Harry rolled back his shoulders, eyes shut, face to the ceiling. Calm veiled his face when he looked back down. He padded the floor to Louis and hopped up on the table. He rested his chin on his knee.

“ _’You seem pretty quiet’_ ,” he said. “ _’Why is that?’_ ”

Louis swallowed. “ _’What’s there to talk about with total strangers? Nothing particularly interesting, that’s for sure.’_ ”

“ _’Oh, really? You don’t find getting to know people interesting?’_ ”

“ _’I’m not into awkward conversations, which is what this is turning into.’_ ”

The line echoed through him, flat comparing to Harry’s rich voice. A smile hinted on Harry’s lips when he stood and pulled Louis up with him, strayed to the room’s centre. The abundance of furniture had them pressed together.

“ _’I’m going out with some friends tonight’_ ,” Harry said, “ _’Do you want to join?’_ ”

Louis glanced from the paper and met the character he so long had followed on-screen. He risked putting away the script. “ _’What did I just say about strangers and how I don’t talk to them?’_ ”

“ _’After a while, you become something more than strangers.’_ ”

Familiar heat encircled Louis akin a faded memory. Harry’s hand travelled up the length of his arm, and Louis said, “Maybe so”, while mapping out the curve of his mouth.

Breaths heated Louis’ forehead when Harry guided their bodies together.

“Usually I’m more professional when I rehearse,” Harry said.

Louis shook his head, slanted him down with a handful of curls and breathed him in. It had only been days and the term “one night stand” struck Louis as acceptable, but those days had mounted to a craving that ignited with Harry’s mouth on his.

The table dug into his back when their tongues touched. Harry’s hands framed his face, brought him in and out of the kiss by small tugs.

“I missed the taste of you,” Harry said, wedged between licks. Louis hummed. The silky locks slipped between his fingers, bundled up when he clamped down again and again, caressed his skin. He thought to thank Harry for his mane later, when his crotch didn’t demand attention.

He pressed them apart for a second and said, “Your hair isn’t so greasy.”

Harry frowned, about to tell him off. A quiet chuckle rumbled his throat. “You think my hair is greasy?”

Louis shook his head again and pulled him back down. Their noses bumped in the brief touch. Harry stroked his sides while easing away from the kiss, biting back a smile. He sank onto his knees.

“Your neighbours shouldn’t mind,” he said as he twiddled the zipper.

Louis’ nails bit wood. He folded his upper body back over the table so Harry could wiggle down his trousers. Long fingers dove inside the hem of his underwear, toying with the elastic. They fell to his ankles.

“Don’t make me come,” he said.

Harry peeked up with a grin before sucking in the tip. Head lolled back, Louis disappeared in the pleasure. If he watched Harry he would lose it. The night was still young.

Harry’s hand folded over his, led it to rest on the back of his head, guide him up and down. Louis moved with the motions, falling deeper until he dangled on the edge. Saltiness stained Harry’s tongue when he stood up for a slow kiss. Louis didn’t need anything else to follow him into bed.

Harry rode him slowly. His chest heaved as he touched himself with the same languor. His thighs flexed around Louis, pace increasing when he fondled his ass and yielded his first whimper. Louis thumbed a crease in his forehead, held onto his shoulders and skimmed his free palm wherever he could reach. Light spilled shadows over Harry’s dimples when he broke out in a smile.

Between creaks and grunts, laughter breached the flat’s walls. Sirens outdoors disguised their sounds when the high crashed down. Harry’s breath fanned over his lips as he fell down. Louis wanted to stay up high with him for months, unwitting, but relented when Harry nestled into his side. Sheets rested slick on their entwined forms, equal to ghostly bumps now that the lights were off.

“Don’t think you should laugh like that during sex,” Harry said.

“Then the sex you’ve had must have been awful.” Louis revelled in the skin to skin feel, stroked Harry’s shoulder blade. “Are you okay after today?”

“I expected the backlash, just not so soon, but I’ll escape the worst of it in a few weeks.” He traced circles on their bodies. “Louis, I’ve been offered a movie role in L.A. I’m going to accept it.” He said it without shame, pummelling the blissful post-sex haze.

Lips hovered over Louis’ collarbone, over the tattoos lumped together there. The comfortable thought of them as a one night stand grew more distant. Louis wanted to tune out when Harry’s words began to drift over his skin.

“I don’t wanna leave behind everything here, but obviously I can’t move it all overseas. I was hoping you’d want to come with me.”

“L.A.?” Louis said, sighed as the lips landed softly on his skin. “I would be a horrible driver, not to mention all the slang I’d have to learn. Sounds like fun. You know I’d just be using you to get to the celebrities, right?”

Harry chuckled. “I’d be fine with that.”

The idea began to sink in; beach strolls; new accents; odd foods; no more bookkeeping; no more worrying about Mr Tomlinson dropping by for a visit. Louis could live with that. He could adjust.

“Right now I’d follow you to the Arctic,” he said. “I need to make a quick phone call.”

Harry slithered up next to him when he sat down at the edge of the bed with his phone. Kisses peppered his waist and hipbone as the signals went through. Lucky for him, the duvet draped over his crotch. A drowsy voice alerted him on the other end of the line. He brought out his kindest tone.

“Hey, Lottie. Are you interested in inheriting a flat?”


End file.
